Again Bella’s eyes sought the fire, and again she gave a little depressed sigh. Her father had been especially disagreeable lately; there had been difficulties about bills and taxes--life at home was at such times a perpetual warfare. Mrs. Piper had been ailing for the last fortnight; her temper had been ailing too. The Piper children were stupid and insolent. Existence was altogether a trial. Bella thought of Beatrix Harefield’s smooth life in the beautiful old Water House, with its lights and shadows, its old world comfort, its retinue of well-trained servants. A dull life, no doubt, but a paradise of rest. As a child, Bella had been envious of her playfellow; but, since both girls had grown to womanhood, envy had assumed a deeper hue, black as the juice of the cuttle-fish, which darkens all it touches. ‘Let me herring-bone those flannels for you, dear Mrs. Dulcimer,’ Bella said at last, rousing herself from her reverie, and presently the needle was flying swiftly backwards and forwards, as Miss Scratchell’s fair head bent over her work. She tried to be lively, feeling it incumbent on her to amuse her kind patroness; and the two women prattled on about servants, and gowns, and bonnets, and the usual feminine subjects, till four o’clock, when it was too dark for any more work, and they could only talk on by the red glow of the fire, till it pleased the omnipotent Rebecca to bring lamps and candles. The Vicarage dining-room was charming by this light. The blocks of books, the shelves of old china, Uncle John’s portly sideboard, standing out with a look of human corpulence in the ruddy glow, shining with a polish that did credit to Rebecca, Aunt Tabitha’s mahogany bureau glittering with brassy ornamentation, the sombre crimson of the well-worn curtains giving depth of tone to the picture. Yes it was a good old room in this changeful and uncertain light, and to Bella, after the discords and disorders of home, it seemed an exquisite haven of repose. There had been old-fashioned folding-doors between the dining-room and library, but these Mr. Dulcimer had removed, replacing them with thick cloth curtains, which made it easier for him to pass from room to room. The clock had struck four, and Mrs. Dulcimer was beginning to feel sleepy, when a ring at the house door put her on the alert. ‘I wonder who it is?’ she said in an undertone, as if the visitor might hear her outside the hall door. ‘It isn’t Clement, for he has his key. And it couldn’t be any ordinary caller on such an afternoon. I dare say it is Mr. Culverhouse come on parish business.’ Bella had made the same speculation, and her heart was beating painfully fast. ‘If it is I’ll draw him out,’ whispered the Vicar’s wife. ‘Oh, pray, pray, dear Mrs. Dulcimer, don’t dream of such a thing----’