d most disdainful
chord. "He says 'before long.'"

"True. But I hardly think that conveys--"

"Oh, please don't begin a sophistical argument He says when he is
coming, and that's all I want to know here's a letter, I see, from that
silly Mrs. Barker--her husband has quite given up drink, and earns good
wages, sad the eldest boy has a place--pooh!"

"All very good news, it seems to me," remarked the vicar, slightly
raising his eyebrows.

But one of Mrs. Lashmar's little peculiarities was that, though she
would exert herself to any extent for people whose helpless
circumstances utterly subjected them to her authority, she lost all
interest in them as soon as their troubles were surmounted, and even
viewed with resentment that result of her own efforts. Worse still,
from her point of view, if the effort had largely been that of the
sufferers themselves--as in this case. Mrs. Barker, a washerwoman who
had reformed her sottish husband, was henceforth a mere offence in the
eyes of the vicar's wife.

"As silly a letter as ever I read!" she exclaimed, throwing aside the
poor little sheet of cheap note-paper with its illiterate gratitude.
"Oh, here's something from Lady Susan--pooh! Another baby. What do I
care about her babies! Not one word about Dyce--not one word. Now,
really!"

"I don't remember what you expected," remarked the vicar, mildly.

Mrs. Lashmar paid no heed to him. With a resentful countenance, she had
pushed the letters aside, and was beginning her meal. Amid all the
so-called duties which she imposed upon herself--for, in her own way,
she bore the burden of the world no less than did the Rev. Philip--Mrs.
Lashmar never lost sight of one great preoccupation, the interests of
her son. He, Dyce Lashmar, only child of the house, now twenty-seven
years old, lived in London, and partly supported himself as a private
tutor. The obscurity of this existence, so painful a contrast to the
hopes his parents had nourished, so disappointing an outcome of all the
thought that had been given to Dyce's education, and of the not
inconsiderable sums spent upon it, fretted Mrs. Lashmar to the soul; at
times she turned in anger against the young man himself, accusing him
of ungrateful supineness, but more often eased her injured feelings by
accusation of all such persons as, by any possibility, might have aided
Dyce to a career. One of these was Lady Susan Harrop, a very remote
relative of hers. Twice or thrice a year, for