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The schoolmaster, on his side, seemed to have had so much advice and offers of assistance in lessons on history, geography, and physical science, that he had been obliged to refer her to the managers, and explain that till the next inspection he was bound to abide by the time-table.

'Ah, well, I will be one of the managers another year.'

So she told the Vicar, who smiled, and said, 'We must elect you.'

'I am sure much ought to be done. It is mere waste to have two separate schools, when a master can bring the children on so much better in the higher subjects.'

'Mrs. Merrifield and the rest of us are inclined to think that what stands highest of all with us is endangered by mixed schools,' said Mr. Doyle.

'Oh!' Arthurine opened her eyes; 'but education does all that!'

'Education does, but knowledge is not wisdom. Susan Merrifield's influence has done more for our young women than the best class teaching could do.'

'Oh, but the Merrifields are all so bornés and homely; they stand in the way of all culture.'

'Indeed,' said the Vicar, who had in his pocket a very favourable review of MESA's new historical essay.

'Surely an old-fashioned squire and Lady Bountiful and their very narrow daughters should not be allowed to prevent improvement, pauperise the place, and keep it in its old grooves.'

'Well, we shall see what you think by the time you have lived here long enough to be eligible for-what?'

'School manager, guardian of the poor!' cried Arthurine.

'We shall see,' repeated the Vicar. 'Good-morning.'

He asked Bessie's leave to disclose who MESA was.

'Oh, don't!' she cried, 'it would spoil the fun! Besides, mamma would not like it, which is a better reason.'

There were plenty of books, old and new, in Bessie's room, magazines and reviews, but they did not come about the house much, unless any of the Rockstone cousins or the younger generation were staying there, or her brother David had come for a rest of mind and body. Between housekeeping, gardening, parish work, and pottering, Mrs. Merrifield and Susan never had time for reading, except that Susan thought it her duty to keep something improving in hand, which generally lasted her six weeks on a moderate average. The Admiral found quite reading enough in the newspapers, pamphlets, and business publications; and their neighbours, the Greville family, were chiefly devoted to hunting and lawn tennis, so that there was some reason in Mrs. Arthuret's lamentation to the Vicar that dear Arthurine did so miss intellectual society, such as she had been used to with the High School mistresses-two of whom had actually been at Girton!

'Does she not get on with Bessie Merrifield?' he asked.

'Miss Bessie has a very sweet face; Arthurine did say she seemed well informed and more intelligent than her sister. Perhaps Arthurine might take her up. It would be such an advantage to the poor girl.'

'Which?' was on Mr. Doyle's tongue, but he restrained it, and only observed that Bessie had lived for a good many years in London.

'So I understood,' said Arthurine, 'but with an old grandmother, and that is quite as bad as if it was in the country; but I will see about it. I might get up a debating society, or one for studying German.'

In the meantime Arthurine decided on improving and embellishing the parish with a drinking fountain, and meeting Bessie one afternoon in the village, she started the idea.

'But,' said Bessie, 'there is a very good supply. Papa saw that good water was accessible to all the houses in the village street ten years ago, and the outlying ones have wells, and there's the brook for the cattle.'

'I am sure every village should have a fountain and a trough, and I shall have it here instead of this dirty corner.'

'Can you get the ground?'

'Oh, any one would give ground for such a purpose! Whose is it?'

'Mr. Grice's, at Butter End.'

The next time Susan and Bessie encountered Arthurine, she began-

'Can you or Admiral Merrifield do nothing with that horrid old Grice! Never was any one so pigheaded and stupid.'

'What? He won't part with the land you want?'

'No; I wrote to him and got no answer. Then I wrote again, and I got a peaked-hand sort of note that his wife wrote, I should think. 'Mr. Grice presented his compliments' (compliments indeed!), 'and had no intention of parting with any part of Spragg's portion.' Well, then I called to represent what a benefit it would be to the parish and his own cattle, and what do you think the old brute said?-that 'there was a great deal too much done for the parish already, and he wouldn't have no hand in setting up the labourers, who were quite impudent enough already.' Well, I saw it was of no use to talk to an old wretch like that about social movements and equal rights, so I only put the question whether having pure water easily accessible would not tend to make them better behaved and less impudent as he called it, upon which he broke out into a tirade. 'He didn't hold with cold water and teetotal, not he. Why, it had come to that-that there was no such thing as getting a fair day's work out of a labouring man with their temperance, and their lectures, and their schools, and their county councils and what not!' Really I had read of such people, but I hardly believed they still existed.'

'Grice is very old, and the regular old sort of farmer,' said Bessie.

'But could not the Admiral persuade him, or Mr. Doyle?'

'Oh no,' said Susan, 'it would be of no use. He was just as bad about a playground for the boys, though it would have prevented their being troublesome elsewhere.'

'Besides,' added Bessie, 'I am sure papa would say that there is no necessity. He had the water analysed, and it is quite good, and plenty of it.'

'Well, I shall see what can be done.'

'She thinks us as bad as old Grice,' said Susan, as they saw her walking away in a determined manner.

The next thing that was heard was the Admiral coming in from the servants' hall, whither he had been summoned by 'Please, sir, James Hodd wishes to speak to you.'

'What is this friend of yours about, Bessie?'

'What friend, papa?'

'Why, this Miss Arthur-what d'ye call her?' said the Admiral (who on the whole was much more attracted by her than were his daughters). 'Here's a deputation from her tenant, James Hodd, with 'Please, sir, I wants to know if 'tis allowed to turn folks out of their houses as they've paid rent for reg'lar with a week's notice, when they pays by the year.''

'You don't mean it!' exclaimed Mrs. Merrifield and Susan together.

'Poor old Mrs. West,' said the mother.

'And all the Tibbinses!' exclaimed Susan. 'She can't do it, can she, papa?'

'Certainly not, without the proper notice, and so I told James, and that the notice she had sent down to him was so much waste-paper.'

'So at least she has created a village Hampden,' said Bessie, 'though, depend upon it, she little supposes herself to be the petty tyrant.'

'I must go and explain to her, I suppose, to-morrow morning,' said the Admiral.

However, he had scarcely reached his own gate before the ulstered form was seen rushing up to him.

'Oh! Admiral Merrifield, good-morning; I was coming to ask you-'

'And I was coming to you.'

'Oh! Admiral, is it really so-as that impudent man told me-that those horrid people can't be got out of those awful tumbledown, unhealthy places for all that immense time?'

'Surely he was not impudent to you? He was only asserting his right. The cottages were taken by the year, and you have no choice but to give six months' notice. I hope he was not disrespectful.'

'Well, no-I can't say that he was, though I don't care for those cap-in-hand ways of your people here. But at any rate, he says he won't go-no, not any of them, though I offered to pay them up to the end of the time, and now I must put off my beautiful plans. I was drawing them all yesterday morning-two model cottages on each side, and the drinking fountain in the middle. I brought them up to show you. Could you get the people to move out? I would promise them to return after the rebuilding.'

'Very nice drawings. Yes-yes-very kind intentions.'