brought up,’ had never had a chance of finding their proper place, of understanding that they were just two callow young things, for whom Life had some fearful knocks in store.  She could even feel now that she had meant that saying:  ‘I am sorry for you two!’ She was sorry for them, sorry for their want of manners and their point of view, neither of which they could help, of course, with a mother like that.  For all her gentleness and sensibility, there was much practical directness about Mildred Malloring; for her, a page turned was a page turned, an idea absorbed was never disgorged; she was of religious temperament, ever trimming her course down the exact channel marked out with buoys by the Port Authorities, and really incapable of imagining spiritual wants in others that could not be satisfied by what satisfied herself.  And this pathetic strength she had in common with many of her fellow creatures in every class.  Sitting down at the writing-table from which she had been disturbed, she leaned her thin, rather long, gentle, but stubborn face on her hand, thinking.  These Gaunts were a source of irritation in the parish, a kind of open sore.  It would be better if they could be got rid of before quarter day, up to which she had weakly said they might remain.  Far better for them to go at once, if it could be arranged.  As for the poor fellow Tryst, thinking that by plunging into sin he could improve his lot and his poor children’s, it was really criminal of those Freelands to encourage him.  She had refrained hitherto from seriously worrying Gerald on such points of village policy—­his hands were so full; but he must now take his part.  And she rang the bell.

“Tell Sir Gerald I’d like to see him, please, as soon as he gets back.”

“Sir Gerald has just come in, my lady.”

“Now, then!”

Gerald Malloring—­an excellent fellow, as could be seen from his face of strictly Norman architecture, with blue stained-glass windows rather deep set in—­had only one defect:  he was not a poet.  Not that this would have seemed to him anything but an advantage, had he been aware of it.  His was one of those high-principled natures who hold that breadth is synonymous with weakness.  It may be said without exaggeration that the few meetings of his life with those who had a touch of the poet in them had been exquisitely uncomfortable.  Silent, almost taciturn by nature, he was a great reader of poetry, and seldom went to sleep without having digested a page or two of Wordsworth, Milton, Tennyson, or Scott.  Byron, save such poems as ‘Don Juan’ or ‘The Waltz,’ he could but did not read, for fear of setting a bad example.  Burns, Shelley, and Keats he did not care for.  Browning pained him, except by such things as:  ’How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix’ and the ‘Cavalier Tunes’; while of ‘Omar Khayyam’ and ‘The Hound of Heaven’ he definitely disapproved.  For Shakespeare he had no real liking, though he concealed this, from humility in the face of accepted opinion.  His was a firm mind, sure of itself, but not self-assertive.  His points were so good, and he had so many of them, that it was only when he met any one touched with poetry that his limitations became apparent; it was rare, however, and getting more so every year, for him to have this unpleasant experience.