‘I shall not speak to her father, yet,’ she said to herself. ‘He has strict ideas of propriety, and might be too severe. Madoline must remonstrate with her.’ She walked across the smiling fields, light of foot, buoyed up by the pleasing idea that she was performing a Christian duty, that her errand was in all things befitting her double position as near relation and pastor’s wife. She felt that if Fate had made her a man she would have been an excellent bishop. All the sterner duties of that high calling—visitations, remonstrances, suspensions—would have come easy to her. She found Madoline in the morning-room, the French windows wide open, the balcony full of flowers, the tables and mantelpiece and cabinets all abloom with roses. ‘Sorry to interrupt your morning practice, dearest,’ said Mrs. Ferrers as Madoline rose from the piano. ‘You play those sweet classic bits so deliciously. Mendelssohn, is it not?’ ‘No; Raff. How early you are, Aunt Rhoda!’ ‘I have something very particular to say to you, Lina, so I came directly I had done with Todd.’ This kind of address from a woman of Rhoda’s type generally forbodes unpleasantness. Madoline looked alarmed. ‘There’s nothing wrong, I hope,’ she faltered. ‘Not absolutely—not intentionally wrong, I trust,’ said Mrs. Ferrers. ‘But it must be put a stop to immediately.’ Madoline turned pale. In the days that were gone Aunt Rhoda had always been a dreadful nuisance to the servants. She had been perpetually making unpleasant discoveries—peculations, dissipations, and carryings-on of divers kinds. Not unfrequently she had stumbled upon mares’-nests, and after making everybody uncomfortable for a week or two, had been constrained to confess herself mistaken. Her rule at South Hill had not been peace. And now Lina feared that, even outside the house, Aunt Rhoda had contrived to make one of her terrible discoveries. Someone had been giving away the milk or selling the corn, or stealing garden-stuff. ‘What is it, Aunt Rhoda?’ Mrs. Ferrers did not give a direct answer. Her cold gray eyes made the circuit of the room, and then she asked: ‘Where is Daphne?’ ‘In her own room—lying down, I think, tired out with rowing.’ ‘And where is Mr. Turchill?’ ‘Gone home. He had some important business, I believe—a horse to look at.’ ‘Oh, he does go home sometimes?’ ‘How curiously you talk, Aunt Rhoda. Is there any harm in his coming here as often as he likes? He is our oldest friend. Papa treats him like a son.’ ‘Oh, no harm, of course, if Vernon is satisfied. But I don’t wonder Daphne is tired, and is lying down at mid-day—a horribly lazy, unladylike habit, by the way. Are you aware that she is down at the boat-house before seven every morning?’ ‘Certainly, aunt. It is much nicer for her to row at that early hour than later in the day. Edgar is teaching her; she is quite safe in his care.’ ‘And do you know that there is a gipsy breakfast every morning in the boat-house?’