My lady was up betimes in the morning. Remembering the previous day\'s dinner, she went to seek the cook, intending to come down upon her with a reprimand. The servants were only just rising from breakfast, which afforded my lady an opportunity of seeing the style of that meal as served in the kitchen of the Red Court Farm.

Tea and coffee; part of a ham, cold; toasted bacon, hot; eggs boiled; watercress and radishes; a raised pie; cold beef; shrimps; hot rolls; toast and butter. The sight of all this so completely took Lady Ellis aback, that she could only stare and wonder.

"Is this your usual breakfast table?" she asked of the cook when the rest had left the kitchen.

"Yes, my lady."

"By whose permission?"

"By--I don\'t understand," said the cook, a stolid sort of woman in ordinary, with a placid face, though very great in her own department.

"Who is it that allows all this?"

Still the woman did not quite comprehend. The scale of living at the Red Court Farm was so profuse, that the servants in point of fact could eat what they pleased.

"Sometimes the eatables is varied, my lady."

"But--does Mr. Thornycroft know of this extravagance going on? Is he aware that you sit down to such a breakfast?"

Cook could not say. He did not trouble himself about the matter. Yes, now she remembered, the justice had come in when they were at breakfast and other meals.

"Who has been the manager here?--who has had the ordering of things?" inquired my lady, in a suppressed passion.

"Sinnett, chiefly. Once in a way the justice would give the orders for dinner; a\'most never," was the reply.

Compressing her lips, determining to suppress all this ere many days should be over, my lady quitted the subject for the one she had chiefly come to speak upon.

"And now, cook, what did you mean by flying in the face of my orders yesterday?"

"Did I fly in the face of \'em?" asked the cook, simply.

"Did you! I ordered a plain dinner--fish, a joint, and pudding. You sent up--I know not what in addition to it."

"Oh, it\'s them extra dishes you mean. Yes, my lady, Sinnett ordered \'em."

"Sinnett!" echoed my lady. "Did you tell her I had desired the dinner should be plain--that I had fixed on it?" she asked after a pause.

"Sinnett said that sort of dinner wouldn\'t do for the justice, and I was to send up a better one."

My lady bit her thin lips. "Call Sinnett here if you please."

Sinnett, about her work upstairs, came in obedience to the summons. She was a little, pale-faced, dark woman, of about thirty-five, given to wear smart caps. My lady attacked her quietly enough, but with a manner authoritative.

"I beg you to understand at once that I am mistress here, Sinnett, and must be obeyed. When I give my orders, whether for dinner or for anything else, they are not to be improved upon."

"My lady, in regard to adding to the dinner yesterday, I did it for the best; not to act in opposition to you," replied Sinnett, respectfully. "A good dinner has to be sent in always: those are the general orders. The young gentlemen are so much in the habit of bringing in chance guests, that the contingency has to be provided for. I have known a party of eight or ten brought in before now, and we servants quite unaware of it until about to lay the cloth."

"Yes," said my lady, hastily, "that might be all very well when there was no controlling mistress here. Mr. Thornycroft\'s sons appear to have been allowed great license in the house; of course it will be different now. Remember one thing, if you please, Sinnett, that you do not interfere with my orders for dinner today."

"Very well, my lady."

Catching up her dress--a beautiful muslin that shone like gold--my lady turned to the larder, telling the cook to follow her. She had expected to see on its shelves the dishes that left the table yesterday; but she saw very little.

"What has become of the ducks, cook? They were scarcely touched at table."

"We had \'em for our suppers, my lady."

My lady had a wrathful word on the tip of her tongue; she did not speak it.

"Ducks for supper in the kitchen! Are you in the habit of taking your supper indiscriminately from the dinner dishes that come down?"

"Yes, my lady. Such is master\'s orders."

"It appears to me that a vast quantity of provisions must be consumed," remarked my lady.

"Pretty well," was the cook\'s answer. "It\'s a tolerable large family; and Mr. Thornycroft has a good deal given away."

"Provisions?"

"He do; he\'s a downright good man, my lady. Not a morning passes, but some poor family or other from the village comes up and carries home what\'s not wanted here."

"I wonder you don\'t have them up at night as well," said my lady, in sarcasm.

The cook took it literally.

"That\'s one of the few things not allowed at the Red Court Farm. Mr. Thornycroft won\'t have people coming here at night: and for the matter of that," added the woman, "they\'d not care to come by the plateau after dark.--About today\'s dinner, my lady?"

Yes; about today\'s dinner. As if in aggravation of the powers that had been, my lady ordered soles, a piece of roast beef, the tart that had not been cut yesterday, and the remainder of the lemon cream.

As she went sailing away, the cook returned into the kitchen to Sinnett. The woman was really perplexed.

"I say, Sinnett, here\'s a start! A piece of ribs of beef, and nothing else. What\'s to be done?"

"Send it up," quietly replied Sinnett.

"But what on earth will the justice and the young masters say?"

"We shall see. I wash my hands of interfering. Exactly what she has ordered, cook, and no more, mind: she and the master must settle it between them."

Mary Anne Thornycroft had hoped she "should not die of it." Of that there was little chance; but that the girl had received a great blow, there was no disputing. Mr. Thornycroft had said a word to her that morning after breakfast in his authoritative manner, to remind her that she was not to run wild, now there was some one at home to be her friend, mother, companion. Smarting under the sense of wrongs that in her limited experience, her ignorance of the woes of the world, she believed had never fallen on anybody\'s head before, Mary Anne when left alone burst into a flood of tears; and Isaac surprised her in them. Half in vexation, half in pride, she dried them hastily. Isaac drew her before him, and stood holding her hands in his, looking down gravely into her face.

"What did you promise me, Mary Anne?"

No answer.

"That you would, for a time at least, make the best of things. That you would try the new rule before rebelling against it."

"But I can\'t. It is too hard, Isaac. Papa\'s beginning to interfere now."

"Interfere! Is that the right word to use?"

She looked down, pouting her pretty lips. It was a good sign, as Isaac knew.

"There was no harm in my walking to Mrs. Copp\'s after breakfast yesterday; or in my staying there; or in my going with you to Jutpoint."

"Did papa say there was harm?"

"He told me I was not to run wild now. He told me that I had a"--the poor chest heaved piteously--"a mother. A mother to control me!"

"Well!" said Isaac.

"She is not my mother--I will never call her so. Oh, Isaac! why can\'t the old days come back again, when mademoiselle was here?"

"Hush! don\'t cry. Richard or she may be coming in. There; be your own calm self, while I say a word to you. Listen. This calamity has been--"

"There!" she interrupted. "You say yourself it is a calamity."

"I have never thought it anything else; but it cannot be averted now, and therefore nothing remains but to try and lighten it. It has been brought about by you; by you alone, Mary Anne; and if I revert to that fact for a moment, my dear, it is not to pain you, but to draw an inference from it for the future. Do not rebel at first to the control of my lady. It would be unjust, ungracious, altogether wrong; it might lead to further trouble for you; we know not of what sort. Promise me," he added, kissing her lips, "that you will not be the one to make first mischief. It is for your own good that I urge it."

Her better judgment came to her, and she gave Isaac a little nod in answer.

My lady reaped the benefit of this lecture. Coming in from her somewhat unsatisfactory visit to the cook, she found the young lady dutifully practising the Moonlight sonata. My lady looked about the room, as if by good luck she might find something to avert weariness. Miss Thornycroft had hoped she should not die of her; my lady was beginning to hope she should not die of ennui.

"Do you never have any books here? Novels?"

"Sometimes," replied Mary Anne, turning round to speak. "We get them from the library at Jutpoint. There are some books upstairs in the book-case that used to be mamma\'s--Walter Scott\'s, and Dickens\'s, and others."

The Moonlight sonata went on again. My lady, who had no soul for music, thought it the most wofully dull piece she had ever listened to. She sat inert on the sofa. Life--this life at the Red Court Farm--was already looking indescribably dreary. And she had pictured it as a second Utopia! It is ever so; when anticipation becomes lost in possession, romance and desire are alike gone.

"How long has Sinnett lived here?" she suddenly asked, again interrupting Miss Thornycroft.

"Ever so long," was the young lady\'s reply. "She came just before mamma died."

"What are her precise functions here?--What does she call herself?"

"We don\'t call her anything in particular. She is a sort of general servant, overlooking everything. She is housekeeper and manager."

"Ah! she has taken a great deal of authority on herself, I can see."

"Has she?" replied Mary Anne. "I have heard papa say she is one of the best servants we ever had; thoroughly capable."

My lady gave her head a little defiant nod: and relapsed into silence and ennui.

Somehow the morning was got through. In the afternoon they set out to walk to the heath; it was rather late, for my lady, lying on the sofa in her bedroom, dropped off to sleep after luncheon. The dinner hour had been postponed to eight in the evening in consequence of a message from Mr. Thornycroft.

Winding round the churchyard, Mary Anne stood a moment and looked over the dwarf quickset hedge, on that side not much higher than her knee. My lady observed that her hands were clasped for a moment, that her lips moved.

"What are you doing, Mary Anne?"

"I never like to go by mamma\'s grave without staying a moment to look at it, and to say a word or two of prayer," was the simple answer.

My lady laughed, not kindly. "That comes of having a Roman Catholic governess."

"Does it!" answered the girl quietly, indignant at the laugh. "Mademoiselle happens to be a Protestant. I did not learn it from her, or from any one; it comes from my heart."

Turning abruptly on to the heath, Mary Anne saw Mademoiselle Derode coming towards them, and sprung off to meet her with a glad step.

Disappointment was in store for my lady\'s private dream of keeping Miss Derode as governess. Mademoiselle was then on her way to the Red Court to tell them she was leaving for France in two days.

"You cannot go," said Mary Anne, with the decisively authoritative manner peculiar to the Thornycrofts. "You must come and spend some weeks with me at the Red Court."

Mademoiselle shook her little brown head. It was not possible, she said; happy as she could be at the Red Court; much as she would have liked to stay again with her dear Miss Mary Anne. Her mother wanted her, and she must go.

Turning about and about, they paced the heath while she repeated the substance of her mother\'s letter. Madame, said she, was suffering from a cold, from the separation, from loneliness, and had written for her. The Champs Elysées had no charms without her dear daughter; the toilettes were miserable; the playing children hustled her, their bonnes were not polite. Virginie must return the very first hour it would be convenient to do so. The pot-au-feu got burnt, the appartement smoked; madame had been so long en pension that she had forgotten how to manage things; never clever at household affairs, the craft of her hand appeared to have gone from her utterly. She had not had a dinner, so to say, since Virginie left; she had not slept one whole night. While Monsieur and Madame--her pupil\'s parents--had been away on their wedding tour, she had said nothing of this, but now that they were home again she would no longer keep silence. Virginie must come; and her best prayers would be upon her on the journey.

A sort of mocking smile, covered on the instant by a sweet word, crossed my lady\'s lips.

"It was all very well," she said, "just what a good mother would write; but mademoiselle must write back, and explain that she was wanted yet for some weeks at the Red Court Farm."

"I cannot," said mademoiselle; "I wish I could. Miladi is very good to invite me; but my mother is my mother."

"You left your mother for seven years; she did well then."

"But, yes; that was different. Miladi can picture it. We have our ménage now."

"I have set my heart upon your coming to us, mademoiselle," was miladi\'s rejoinder, showing for a moment her white teeth.

"I should not need the pressing, if I could come," was the simple answer. "It is a holiday to me now to be at the Red Court Farm; but some things are practicable and others are not practicable, as miladi knows."

And the poor little governess in the cause of her mother was hard as adamant. They walked about until my lady\'s legs were tired, and then prepared to return.

"Of course you will come back with us, and dine for the last time?" said Mary Anne.

On any other occasion my lady might have interposed with an intimation that Mary Anne Thornycroft had no longer licence to invite whom she pleased to the table of the Red Court Farm. Without waiting for her to second the invitation, mademoiselle at once accepted it.

"For the last time," she repeated; "I shall be making my baggage tomorrow."

My lady did not change her dress for dinner. The odds and ends of what we are pleased to call full dinner-dress did not seem to be appreciated at the Red Court. Yesterday Richard and Isaac had sat down in their velveteen clothes. A moment before dinner Mr. Thornycroft came into the drawing-room, and said his sons had brought in two or three friends. My lady, meeting them in the hall, stared at their appearance and number.

"What is it? who are they?" she whispered to Mary Anne.

"Oh, it is only one of their impromptu dinner parties," carelessly replied Mary Anne. "I guessed they were thinking of it by their delaying the dinner. They have supper parties instead sometimes."

My lady thought she had never seen so rough a dinner party in her life, in the matter of dress. Richard and Isaac wore thin light clothes, loose and easy; the strangers\' costume was, to say the least of it, varied. Old Connaught, temporarily abroad again, was wrapped in a suit of grey flannel; the superintendent of the coastguard wore brown; and Captain Copp had arrived in a pea-jacket. Mary Anne shook hands with them all; Miss Derode chattered; and Mr. Thornycroft introduced the superintendent by name to his wife--Mr. Dangerfield.

"Only six today," whispered Mary Anne to her stepmother. "Sometimes they have a dozen."

Quite enough for the fare provided. Before Mr. Thornycroft began to help the soles, he looked everywhere for a second dish--on the table, on the sideboard, on the dumb waiter. "There\'s more fish than this, Sinnett?" he exclaimed, hastily.

"No, sir. That\'s all."

Mr. Thornycroft stared his servants severally in the face, as if the fault were theirs. Three of them were in waiting: Sinnett, a maid, and Hyde. He then applied himself to the helping of the fish, and, by dint of contrivance, managed to make it go round.

Well and good. Some ribs of beef came on next, fortunately a large piece. Mr. Thornycroft let it get cold before him; he could not imagine what the hindrance meant. Presently it struck him that the three servants stood in their places waiting for the meat to be served. The guests waited.

"Where are the other things, Hyde?"

"There\'s only that, sir."

The justice looked up the table and down the table; never in his whole life had he felt ashamed of his hospitality until now. But by this time the curious aspect of affairs had penetrated to Richard.

"Is this all you have to give us for dinner?" he asked of Sinnett, in his deep, stern tones; and he did not think it necessary to lower his voice.

"Yes, sir."

"This! That piece of beef?"

"There\'s nothing ............