press
to a firm and durable material, either in the heat of the furnace, or the
ductility of growth. So Robert and Phoebe, children of the heart that
had lost those of her adoption, cheered these lonely days by their need
of her advice and sympathy.

Nor was she without tasks at home. Mr. Henderson, the vicar, was a very
old man, and was constantly growing more feeble and unequal to exertion.
He had been appointed by the squire before last, and had the indolent
conservative orthodoxy of the old school, regarding activity as a
perilous innovation, and resisting all Miss Charlecote's endeavours at
progress in the parish. She had had long patience, till, when his
strength failed, she ventured to entreat him to allow her to undertake
the stipend of a curate, but this was rejected with displeasure, and she
was forced to redouble her own exertions; but neither reading to the
sick, visiting the cottages, teaching at school, nor even setting up a
night-school in her own hall, availed to supply the want of an active
pastor and of a resident magistrate.

Hiltonbury was in danger of losing its reputation as a pattern parish,
which it had retained long after the death of him who had made it so.
The younger race who had since grown up were not such as their fathers
had been, and the disorderly household at Beauchamp had done mischief.
The primitive manners, the simplicity, and feudal feeling were wearing
off, and poor Honor found the whole charge laid to her few modern steps
in education! If Hiltonbury were better than many of the neighbouring
places, yet it was not what it had been when she first had known it, and
she vexed herself in the attempt to understand whether the times or
herself were the cause.

Even her old bailiff, Brooks, did not second her. He had more than come
to the term of service at which the servant becomes a master, and had no
idea of obeying her, when he thought he knew best. Backward as were her
notions of modern farming, they were too advanced for him, and either he
would not act on them at all, or was resolved against their success when
coerced. There was no dismissing him, and without Mr. Saville to come
and enforce her authority, Honor found the old man so stubborn that she
had nearly given up the contest, except where the welfare of men, not of
crops, was concerned.

A maiden's reign is a dreary thing, when she tends towards age. And
Honor often felt what it would have been to have had Owen t