d
in front of the church she looked up at the dear old tower, telling
herself that, in all probability, she would never see it again.

"I have just one thing to say, Mary," said the parson, as he walked
up and down the platform with her at Westbury; "you are to remember
that, whatever happens, there is always a home for you at Bullhampton
when you choose to come to it. I am not speaking of the Privets now,
but of the Vicarage."

"How very good you are to me!"

"And so are you to us. Dear friends should be good to each other.
God bless you, dear." From thence she made her way home to Loring by
herself.

CHAPTER IX.

MISS MARRABLE.

Whatever may be the fact as to the rank and proper calling of
Bullhampton, there can be no doubt that Loring is a town. There is a
market-place, and a High Street, and a Board of Health, and a Paragon
Crescent, and a Town Hall, and two different parish churches, one
called St. Peter Lowtown, and the other St. Botolph's Uphill, and
there are Uphill Street, and Lowtown Street, and various other
streets. I never heard of a mayor of Loring, but, nevertheless, there
is no doubt as to its being a town. Nor did it ever return members
to Parliament; but there was once, in one of the numerous bills that
have been proposed, an idea of grouping it with Cirencester and
Lechlade. All the world of course knows that this was never done; but
the transient rumour of it gave the Loringites an improved position,
and justified that little joke about a live dog being better than a
dead lion, with which the parson at Bullhampton regaled Miss Lowther
at the time.

All the fashion of Loring dwelt, as a matter of course, at Uphill.
Lowtown was vulgar, dirty, devoted to commercial and manufacturing
purposes, and hardly owned a single genteel private house. There was
the parsonage, indeed, which stood apart from its neighbours, inside
great tall slate-coloured gates, and which had a garden of its own.
But except the clergyman, who had no choice in the matter, nobody
who was anybody lived at Lowtown. There were three or four factories
there,--in and out of which troops of girls would be seen passing
twice a day, in their ragged, soiled, dirty mill dresses, all of
whom would come out on Sunday dressed with a magnificence that
would lead one to suppose that trade at Loring was doing very well.
Whether trade did well or ill, whether wages were high or low,
whether provisions were cheap in price, whether t