If these people had not been the Squire’s _protégées_ they would have been dismissed from orderly Penwyn long ere now. They were out of harmony with their surroundings, they made a discordant note in the calm music of life at the Manor. While all else was neatness, exquisite cleanliness, the lodge had a look of neglect, a slovenliness which struck the observer’s eye disagreeably—a curtain hanging awry at one of the lattices, a tattered garment flying like a pennant from an open casement, a trailing branch of jessamine, a handleless jug standing on a window-sill, a muddy door-step. Trifles like these annoyed Mrs. Penwyn, and she had more than once reproved the lodge-keeper for her untidiness. The woman had heard her quietly enough, had uttered no insolent word, and had curtseyed low as the lady of the mansion passed on. But the dark face had been shadowed by a sullen frown, and no amendment had ever followed Mrs. Penwyn’s remonstrances. ‘I really wish you would get rid of those people at the north lodge,’ Madge said to Churchill, one day, after having her patience peculiarly tried by the spectacle of a ragged blanket hanging to dry in the lodge garden. ‘They make our grounds look like some Irish squireen’s place, where the lodge-keeper is allowed a patch of potatoes and a drying-ground for the family linen at the park gates. If they are really objects of charity, it would be better to allow them a pension, and let them live where they like.’ ‘We will think about it, my love, when I have a little more time on my hands,’ answered Mr. Penwyn. He never said an absolute ‘No’ to his wife; but a request which had to be thought about by him was rarely granted. Madge gave an impatient sigh. These people at the lodge exercised her patience severely. ‘Waiting till you have leisure seems absurd, Churchill,’ she said. ‘With your parliamentary work, and all that you have to see to here, there can be no such thing as spare time. Why not send these people away at once? They make the place look horribly untidy.’ ‘I’ll remonstrate with them,’ replied Churchill. ‘And then they are such queer people,’ continued Madge. ‘That girl Elspeth is as ignorant as a South Sea Islander, and I dare say the grandmother is just as bad. They never go to church, setting such a shocking example to the villagers.’ ‘My love, there are many respectable people who never go to church. I rarely went myself in my bachelor days. I used to reserve Sunday morning for my arrears of correspondence.’ ‘Oh, Churchill!’ cried Madge, with a shocked look. ‘My dearest love, you know I do not set up for exalted virtue.’ ‘Churchill!’ she exclaimed, tenderly, but still with that shocked look. She loved him so much better than herself that she would have liked heaven to be a certainty for him even at the cost of a cycle in purgatory for her.