to the occasion and got out of the difficulty with what she thought great skill, arranging, as it was impossible to disappoint twenty-four of these, that they should take it in turn, each coming for one day until all had had a day and then beginning again with the first one.  It seemed a brilliant plan.  Life at Creeper Cottage promised to be very varied.  She gathered them together in the village shop to talk it over.  She asked them if they thought ten shillings a day and food would be enough.  She asked it hesitatingly, afraid lest she were making them an impossibly frugal offer.  She was relieved at the cry of assent; but it was followed after a moment by murmurs from the married women, when they had had time to reflect, that it was unfair to pay the raw young ones at the same rate as themselves.  Priscilla however turned a deaf ear to their murmurings.  “The girls may not,” she said, raising her hand to impose silence, “be able to get through as much as you do in a day, but they’ll be just as tired when evening comes.  Certainly I shall give them the same wages.”  She made them draw lots as to who should begin, and took the winner home with her then and there; she too, though the day was far spent, was to have her ten shillings.  “What, have you forgotten your New Testaments?” Priscilla cried, when more murmurs greeted this announcement.  “Don’t you remember the people who came at the eleventh hour to labour in the vineyard and got just the same as the others?  Why should I try to improve on parables?” And there was something about Priscilla, an air, an authority, that twisted the women of Symford into any shape of agreement she chose.  The twenty-four went their several ways.  The twenty-fifth ran home to put on a clean apron, and got back to the shop in time to carry the eggs and butter and bread Priscilla had bought.  “I forgot to bring any money,” said Priscilla when the postmistress—­it was she who kept the village shop—­told her how much it came to.  “Does it matter?”

“Oh don’t mention it, Miss Neumann-Schultz,” was the pleasant answer of that genteel and trustful lady; and she suggested that Priscilla should take with her a well-recommended leg of mutton she had that day for sale as well.  Priscilla shuddered at the sight of it and determined never to eat legs of mutton again.  The bacon, too, piled up on the counter, revolted her.  The only things that looked as decent raw as when they were cooked were eggs; and on eggs she decided she and Fritzing would in future live.  She broke off a piece of the crust of the bread Mrs. Vickerton was wrapping up and ate it, putting great pressure on herself to do it carelessly, with a becoming indifference.

“It’s good bread,” said Mrs. Vickerton, doing up her parcel.

“Where in the world do you get it from?” asked Priscilla enthusiastically.  “The man must be a genius.”

“The carrier brings it every day,” said Mrs. Vickerton, pleased and touched by such appreciation.  “It’s a Minehead baker’s.”