"Yes! Miss H'Aura," replied Martha, pausing to make a dive into the oven and come up therefrom still more flushed and still more determined. "She's gone. Bad barm won't never bake 'ouseholds as my mother used to say; and glad was I to be rid of her, for I shud a' put her past afore long, yes! I shud, and a' got 'ung for it I s'ppose--it ain't any good lookin' shocked, Miss H'Aura, for a body can't 'elp her feelin's, and put her past I shud, for Bate, he began to pity her shet up alone! 'If you says much more,' says I, 'it's to the pigstyes she'll go'--an' the only proper place for 'er, Miss H'Aura, and me havin' to black my tongue tellin' master it was the sow as was squealin' so! But there! Them as 'as no 'eads takes it out in 'earts, and Bate is that soft about wimmin, 'tis all I can do to keep from kneadin' more flour to him as if he was a silly batch o' bread! But we'll do all right without 'er caps an' aprons; and _so I told Bate_." Martha's face, indeed, wore a determination which augured well for domestic comfort. "But grandfather--" began Aura anxiously, "he ought not to be disturbed." "Who's a disturbing of the good gentleman?" snapped Martha, "Pore dear, 'e'll have 'is shavin' water 'ot in future. How they can stand, brazen, an' ask wages beats me! An' she talkin' o' the waste o' water being a crime against the company--a water company, winter time, in Wales! Lord sakes!--if she run the cold off, as I bid her do; though 'er pantry tap was spoutin' into the pail a good 'arf hour while she was beguilin' Bate. No! Miss H'Aura! I wasn't goin' to lie for 'er more'n I cud 'elp, so I told master the stric' truth-an'-no-one-a-penny-the-worse, as the sayin' is." "What did you tell him?" asked Aura rather wearily, for even Martha was getting on her nerves. "I told him as revivals havin' bin too much for her body _an_' soul she was stoppin' at the inn, where she is, Miss H'Aura, and if she screech there as she screeched here some one 'll be in Bedlam before mornin'--_an' so I told Bate_." This was the invariable epilogue to all Martha's diatribes. "I suppose Mr. Cruttenden has returned?" asked Aura. "As nice as nuts, an' is in with Master. I reely don't know, now I come to think on it, what we shud a-done this last week without 'im! Not but what 'is lordship----" she shot a quick glance at Aura--"Lord sakes! deary," she cried, "you do look weary-like. Go up to your bed, there's a duck, an' have a lie down--one can't never forget the face o' death till one's asleep." 'Death, and his brother sleep!...' The words were in Aura's brain as she went upstairs, wondering why it was that now Ned was no longer beside her she felt far more disturbed, far more, in a way, ashamed about him, than she had done when he was beside her. Yes! even when he had been masterful and told her that it was all foolishness, that she knew she loved him.