Clare was nobody’s business. English farmers no more than French are proverbial for generosity; and Farmer Goodenough, no bad type of his class, had a wife in whose thoughts not the pence but the farthings dominated. She was one who at once recoiled and repelled--one of those whose skin shrinks from the skin of their kind, and who are specially apt to take unaccountable dislikes--a pitiable human animal of the leprous sort. She “never took to the foundling,” she said. To have neither father nor mother, she counted disreputable. But I believe the main source of her dislike to Clare was a feeling of undefined reproof in the very atmosphere of the boy’s presence, his nature was so different from hers. What urged him toward his fellow-creatures, made her draw back from him. In truth she hated the boy. The very look of him made her sick, she said. It was only a certain respect for the parson, and a certain fear of her husband, who, seldom angry, was yet capable of fury, that had prevented her from driving the child, “with his dish-clout face,” off the premises, whenever she saw him from door or window. It was no wonder the farmer should be at his wits’ end to know what, as churchwarden, guardian of the poor, and friend of the late vicar--as friendly also to the boy himself--he was bound to do. “Where are _you_ going?” he asked Sarah. “Where the Lord wills,” answered the old woman. Her ark had gone to pieces, and she hardly cared what became of her. “We’ve got to look to ourselves!” said the farmer. “Parson used to say there was One as took that off our hands!” replied Sarah. “Yes, yes,” assented Mr. Goodenough, fidgeting a little; “but the Almighty helps them as helps themselves, and that’s sound doctrine. You really must do something, Sarah! We can’t have you on the parish, you know!” “I beg your pardon, sir, but until the child here is provided for, or until they turn us out of the parsonage, I will not leave the place.” “The furniture is advertised for sale. You’ll have nothing but the bare walls!” “We’ll manage to keep each other warm!--Shan’t we, Clare?” “I will try to keep you warm, Sarah,” responded the boy sadly. “But the new parson will soon be here. Our souls must be cared for!” said the farmer. “Is the Lord’s child that came from heaven in an earthquake to be turned out into the cold for fear the souls of big men should perish?” “Something must be done about it!” said the farmer. “What it’s to be I can’t tell! It’s no business o’ mine any way!” “That’s what the priest, and the Levite, and the farmer says!” returned Sarah. “Won’t you ask Mr. Goodenough to stay to dinner?” said Clare. He went up to the farmer, who in his perplexity had seated himself, and laid his arm on his shoulder. “No, I can’t,” answered Sarah. “He would eat all we have, and not have enough!” “Now Maly is gone,” returned Clare, “I would rather not have any dinner.”