it was provided for the labourers once a year), and there was a sweet pudding that she could see stirred together in a big white bowl, a pudding that smelt of sweetness like a posy.  A noisy fly, the first of his kind, buzzed over the plate where the empty eggshells lay beside the bowl, and from them crawled to the scattered sugar that sparkled carelessly upon the rim.  Loveday, of old, would have had a second’s envy of the fly that could thus browse on what smelt so good; now the fine aromas affected her nostrils merely as incense might have those of her papist father—­as the savour of the great house where dwelt those to be propitiated.  For upon Mrs. Veale she now felt hope was fastened; it was from her almost sacred hands that salvation would flow.  Fear and expectation took Loveday by the throat, so stifling her that the wide kitchen, the stout blue-print-clad cook, the bright pots and pans, the leaping flames, the savoury odours and the buzzing of the fly, all blended together before her dizzied eyes.

The figure of the housemaid, crisp in white and black, entered steadyingly, and with her voice, saying that the mistress would see Loveday Strick in the morning-room, the flow of the kitchen ebbed and subsided.  Loveday followed the white and black through the long, narrow hall, where the fox’s mask grinned at her from above the fanlight of the door, to the presence of the Vicar’s wife.

Mrs. Veale was a personable lady, with a high and narrow brow, and a penetrating eye that few in the village could evade if they had aught upon their conscience.  It was said, indeed, that she was better than a curate to her husband, for she could pass where a man could not in delicacy have gone, and few were the maids, and fewer still the housewives, who had not benefited by her counsel.  She fixed that eye benevolently upon Loveday now; the lady stately in her black silk, the locket containing the hair of her departed parent, one-time a canon of Exeter, lying upon her matronly bosom; the girl awkward in her homespun wrapper, her feet fearful of standing upon the flowered carpet.

“Come in, Loveday,” said Mrs. Veale kindly.

Loveday advanced a step and dropped her curtsey, but not a word could she say to explain her visit.

“What do you want to see me about?” asked Mrs. Veale briskly—­for she was much busied in good works, and had no time to give over what was needful to each of them.

“If you please, ma’am, I want work,” said Loveday.

Mrs. Veale looked her approval on hearing this most praiseworthy of the few sentences fit for use of the lower classes.  Even when there is no work to be had such sentiments should be encouraged, and without them she never unloosed that charity which, when the supply of work failed, she exercised for the good of her parishioners’ bodies and her own soul.

Loveday felt the approval, and her heart took wings to the heaven of certain hope.  Indeed, had Loveday but had the sense of what was fitting to tell the Vicar’s lady, she might have attained what she wanted, but hope, like despair, ever made Loveday heady.