“Yes, certainly that, of course; but I should have thought him very unsuitably placed as an instructor of youth and—­”

The right adjustment of the cape seemed to interrupt the speech, but others mentally supplied the ending with reference to Miss Bennett.

“Miss Rexford, being one of Principal Trenholme’s oldest friends, is not taken by surprise.”  Some one said this; Sophia hardly knew who it was.  She knelt upright by the packing basket and threw back her head.

“I met him often at my own uncle’s house.  My uncle knew him thoroughly, and liked him well.”

Most of the women there were sensibly commenting on the amount of work done, and allotting shares for the ensuing week.  It would take a week at least to rouse them to the state of interest at which others had already arrived.

Her cape adjusted, Mrs. Bennett found something else to say.  “Of course, personally, it makes no difference to me, for I have always felt there was something about Principal Trenholme—­that is, that he was not—­It is a little hard to express; one feels, rather than speaks, these things.”

It was a lie, but what was remarkable about it was that its author did not know it for one.  In the last half-hour she had convinced herself that she had always suffered in Trenholme’s presence from his lack of refinement, and there was little hope that an imagination that could make such strides would not soon discover in him positive coarseness.  As the party dispersed she was able to speak aside to Sophia.

“I see how you look upon it,” she said.  “There is no difference between one trade and another, or between a man who deals in cargoes of cattle and one who sells meat in a shop.”—­She was weakly excited; her voice trembled.  “Looking down from a higher class, we must see that, although all trades are in a sense praiseworthy, one is as bad as another.”

“They seem to me very much on a level,” said Sophia.  There was still a hard ring in her voice.  She looked straight before her.

“Of course in this country”—­Mrs. Bennett murmured something half-audible about the Browns.  “One cannot afford to be too particular whom one meets, but I certainly should have thought that in our pulpits—­in our schools—­”

She did not finish.  Her thin mouth was settling into curves that bespoke that relentless cruelty which in the minds of certain people, is synonymous with justice.

It was a rickety, weather-stained chaise in which Mrs. Bennett and her daughter were to drive home.  As Miss Bennett untied the horse herself, there was a bright red spot on either of her cheeks.  She had made no remark on the subject on which her mother was talking, nor did she speak now.  She was in love with Trenholme, that is, as much in love as a practical woman can be with a man from whom she has little hope of a return.  She was not as pretty as many girls are, nor had she the advantages of dress