The library lay but three steps from the dining-room, on the other side of a cloistered and matted passage.  The oriel window was overshadowed by the great beech, and this, with the flat heavily-carved ceiling and the dark hue of the old books that lined the walls, made the room look sombre, especially on entering it from the dining-room, with its aerial curves and cream-coloured fretwork touched with gold.  As Sir Christopher opened the door, a jet of brighter light fell on a woman in a widow’s dress, who stood in the middle of the room, and made the deepest of curtsies as he entered.  She was a buxom woman approaching forty, her eyes red with the tears which had evidently been absorbed by the handkerchief gathered into a damp ball in her right hand.

‘Now.  Mrs. Hartopp,’ said Sir Christopher, taking out his gold snuff-box and tapping the lid, ’what have you to say to me?  Markham has delivered you a notice to quit, I suppose?’

‘O yis, your honour, an’ that’s the reason why I’ve come.  I hope your honour ‘ll think better on it, an’ not turn me an’ my poor children out o’ the farm, where my husband al’ys paid his rent as reglar as the day come.’

’Nonsense!  I should like to know what good it will do you and your children to stay on a farm and lose every farthing your husband has left you, instead of selling your stock and going into some little place where you can keep your money together.  It is very well known to every tenant of mine that I never allow widows to stay on their husbands’ farms.’

‘O, Sir Christifer, if you would consider—­when I’ve sold the hay, an’ corn, an’ all the live things, an’ paid the debts, an’ put the money out to use, I shall have hardly enough to keep our souls an’ bodies together.  An’ how can I rear my boys and put ’em ’prentice?  They must go for dey-labourers, an’ their father a man wi’ as good belongings as any on your honour’s estate, an’ niver threshed his wheat afore it was well i’ the rick, nor sold the straw off his farm, nor nothin’.  Ask all the farmers round if there was a stiddier, soberer man than my husband as attended Ripstone market.  An’ he says, “Bessie,” says he—­them was his last words—­“you’ll mek a shift to manage the farm, if Sir Christifer ‘ull let you stay on."’

‘Pooh, pooh!’ said Sir Christopher, Mrs. Hartopp’s sobs having interrupted her pleadings, ’now listen to me, and try to understand a little common sense.  You are about as able to manage the farm as your best milch cow.  You’ll be obliged to have some managing man, who will either cheat you out of your money or wheedle you into marrying him.’

‘O, your honour, I was never that sort o’ woman, an’ nobody has known it on me.’

’Very likely not, because you were never a widow before.  A woman’s always silly enough, but she’s never quite as great a fool as she can be until she puts on a widow’s cap.  Now, just ask yourself how much the better you will be for staying on your farm at the end of four years, when you’ve got through your money, and let your farm run down, and are in arrears for half your rent; or, perhaps, have got some great hulky fellow for a husband, who swears at you and kicks your children.’