ble to Mrs. Thornburgh and whipped
up his horse again. The cart started off, and Mrs. Thornburgh was left
staring into the receding eyes of 'Jim the Noodle,' who, from his
seat on the near shaft, regarded her with a gaze which had passed from
benevolence into a preternatural solemnity.

'He's sparin' ov 'is speach, is John Backhouse,' said Sarah grimly,
as her mistress returned to her. 'Maybe ee's aboot reet. It's a bad
business au' ee'll not mend it wi' taakin.'

Mrs. Thornburgh, however, could not apply herself to the case of Mary
Backhouse. At any other moment it would have excited in her breast
the shuddering interest, which, owing to certain peculiar attendant
circumstances, it, awakened in every other woman in Long Whindale. But
her mind--such are the limitations of even clergymen's wives--was now
absorbed by her own misfortune. Her very cap-strings seemed to hang limp
with depression, as she followed Sarah dejectedly into the kitchen,
and gave what attention she could to, those second-best arrangements so
depressing to the idealist temper.

Poor soul! All the charm and glitter of her little social adventure was
gone. When she once more emerged upon the lawn, and languidly readjusted
her spectacles, she was weighed down by the thought that in two hours
Mrs. Seaton would be upon her. Nothing of this kind ever happened to
Mrs. Seaton. The universe obeyed her nod. No carrier conveying goods to
her august door ever got drunk or failed to deliver his consignment. The
thing was inconceivable. Mrs. Thornburgh was well aware of it.

Should William be informed? Mrs. Thornburgh had a rooted belief in the
brutality of husbands in all domestic crises, and would have preferred
not to inform him. But she had also a dismal certainty that the
secret would burn a hole in her till it was confessed-bill and all.
Besides--frightful thought!--would they have to eat up all those
_meringues_ next day?

Her reflections at last became so depressing that, with a natural
epicurean instinct, she tried violently to turn her mind away from them.
Luckily she was assisted by a sudden perception of the roof and chimneys
of Burwood, the Leyburns' house, peeping above the trees to the left. At
sight of them a smile overspread her plump and gently wrinkled face. She
fell gradually into a train of thought, as feminine as that in which she
had been just indulging, but infinitely more pleasing.

For, with regard to the Leyburns, at this present m