And this was ‘home.’  The whole place jarred upon her, fresh as she was from a fine house in Belgravia.  The sitting-room beneath, which she had so quickly left, looked cheerful and homely, but it was that very homeliness that jarred upon her.  The teapot was real silver, but it was of old-fashioned shape.  Solid as the furniture was, and still after so many years of service worth money, yet it was chipped by kicks from iron-shod boots, which had also worn the dingy carpet bare.  There was an absence of the nick-nacks that strew the rooms of people in ‘Society.’  There was not even a bell-handle to pull; if you wanted the maid of all work, you must open the door and call to her.  These little things, trifles as they may be, repelled her.  It was a bitter cup to her to come ‘home.’

Mr. S——­ was a farmer of fair means, and, compared with many of his neighbours, well-to-do, and well connected.  But he was still a yeoman only, and personally made pretensions to nothing more.  Though he himself had received little or no education, he quite saw the value of it, and was determined that his children should be abreast of the times.  Accordingly, so soon as Georgie grew old enough, a governess with high recommendations, and who asked what the farmer then thought a high price (he knows more about such things now!) was had down from London.  Of course the rudimentary A B C of learning could just as well have been imparted by an ordinary person, but Mr. and Mrs. S——­ had a feeling which they could not perhaps have expressed in words, that it was not so much the actual reading and writing, and French and music, and so on, as a social influence that was needed to gradually train the little country girl into a young lady fit to move in higher society.

The governess did her work thoroughly.  Georgie was not allowed to walk in the wet grass, to climb up the ladder on to the half-completed hayrick, and romp under the rick-cloth, to paddle with naked feet in the shallow brook, or any other of the things that country children have done from time immemorial.  Such things she was taught were not ladylike, and, above all, she was kept away from the cottage people.  She was not permitted to enter their doors, to converse with the women, or to watch the carter with his horses.  Such vulgar folk and their vulgar dialect were to be carefully avoided.  Nor must she get into a hedge after a bird’s-nest, lest she should tear her frock.

It was not long before the governess really ruled the house.  The farmer felt himself totally unable to interfere in these matters; they were outside his experience altogether.  His wife did not like it, but for Georgie’s sake she gave up her former habits, and endeavoured to order the house according to the ideas of the governess from London.  The traditions, as it were, of the place were upset.  It was not a solitary instance, the same thing has happened in scores of farmhouses to a more or less degree.  Mr. S——­ all his life