he had left the gloomy, damp-feeling, chill room,
in which some former Lord Ongar had stored the musty Volumes which he
had thought fit to purchase. The library gave her no ease, so she went
out again among the lawns and shrubs. For some time to come her best
resources must be those which she could find outside the house.

Peering about, she made her way behind the stables, which were attached
to the house, to a farm-yard gate, through which the way led to the
headquarters of the live stock. She did not go through, but she looked
over the gate, telling herself that those barns and sheds, that wealth
of straw-yard, those sleeping pigs and idle, dreaming calves, were all
her own. As she did so, her eye fell upon an old laborer, who was
sitting close to her, on a felled tree, under the shelter of a paling,
eating his dinner. A little girl, some six years old, who had brought
him his meal tied up in a handkerchief, was crouching near his feet.
They had both seen her before she had seen them, and when she noticed
them, were staring at her with all their eyes. She and they were on the
same side of the farmyard paling, and so she could reach them and speak
to them without difficulty. There was, apparently, no other person near
enough to listen, and it occurred to her that she might at any rate make
a friend of this old man. His name, he said, was Enoch Gubby, and the
girl was his grandchild. Her name was Patty Gubby. Then Patty got up and
had her head patted by her ladyship and received sixpence. They neither
of them, however, knew who her ladyship was, and, as far as Lady Ongar
could ascertain without a question too direct to be asked, had never
heard of her. Enoch Gubby said he worked for Mr. Giles, the
steward--that was for my lord, and as he was old and stiff with
rheumatism he only got eight shillings a week. He had a daughter, the
mother of Patty, who worked in the fields, and got six shillings a week.
Everything about the poor Gubbys seemed to be very wretched and
miserable. Sometimes he could hardly drag himself about, he was so bad
with the rheumatics. Then she thought that she would make one person
happy, and told him that his wages should be raised to ten shillings a
week. No matter whether he earned it or not, or what Mr. Giles might
say; he should have ten shillings a week.

So Enoch Gabby got his weekly ten shillings, though Lady Ongar hardly
realized the pleasure that she had expected from the transaction. She