-gift, among that small generation outside the windows. But Mr.
Edward Freely was a man whose impulses were kept in due subordination: he
held that the desire for sweets and pastry must only be satisfied in a
direct ratio with the power of paying for them. If the smallest child in
Grimworth would go to him with a halfpenny in its tiny fist, he would,
after ringing the halfpenny, deliver a just equivalent in "rock." He was
not a man to cheat even the smallest child--he often said so, observing
at the same time that he loved honesty, and also that he was very tender-
hearted, though he didn't show his feelings as some people did.

Either in reward of such virtue, or according to some more hidden law of
sequence, Mr. Freely's business, in spite of prejudice, started under
favourable auspices. For Mrs. Chaloner, the rector's wife, was among the
earliest customers at the shop, thinking it only right to encourage a new
parishioner who had made a decorous appearance at church; and she found
Mr. Freely a most civil, obliging young man, and intelligent to a
surprising degree for a confectioner; well-principled, too, for in giving
her useful hints about choosing sugars he had thrown much light on the
dishonesty of other tradesmen. Moreover, he had been in the West Indies,
and had seen the very estate which had been her poor grandfather's
property; and he said the missionaries were the only cause of the negro's
discontent--an observing young man, evidently. Mrs. Chaloner ordered
wine-biscuits and olives, and gave Mr. Freely to understand that she
should find his shop a great convenience. So did the doctor's wife, and
so did Mrs. Gate, at the large carding-mill, who, having high connexions
frequently visiting her, might be expected to have a large consumption of
ratafias and macaroons.

The less aristocratic matrons of Grimworth seemed likely at first to
justify their husbands' confidence that they would never pay a percentage
of profits on drop-cakes, instead of making their own, or get up a hollow
show of liberal housekeeping by purchasing slices of collared meat when a
neighbour came in for supper. But it is my task to narrate the gradual
corruption of Grimworth manners from their primitive simplicity--a
melancholy task, if it were not cheered by the prospect of the fine
peripateia or downfall by which the progress of the corruption was
ultimately checked.

It was young Mrs. Steene, the veterinary surgeons wife, who fir