“Mr. Jeffray knows my name.” Mrs. Barbara’s brows contracted, and there was an unpleasant glint in her brown eyes. “And what may your business with the squire be?” she asked, suspiciously. Bess reddened and began to look fierce. “My business is not yours,” she retorted. “If you will tell Mr. Jeffray that I am here he will see me.” Mrs. Gladden drew herself up, and expressed amazement that a gypsy wench should give herself such mighty airs. “Highty-tighty!” she exclaimed, with elevated nostrils; “are we on visiting terms at the priory? You Grimshaws may have broken Mr. Jeffray’s head, but you are not of the quality the young master receives. Come. What d’you want? Money, eh? The back door is the place for beggars.” Bess’s natural dignity appeared to lift her out of the squabble and to set her immeasurably above Mrs. Barbara’s papered head. “I have come to speak with Mr. Jeffray, that is all,” she said, looking very haughtily into the elder woman’s face. “I have not come to beg or to wrangle with Mr. Jeffray’s servants.” “Servants! The impertinence of it!” “I will bide here—till you have taken my name to your master, madam.” Mrs. Gladden’s nose suggested the presence of some very unpleasant odor. She thrust her hands under her dirty apron, and strove to look as portentous as her fat and frowsy person would permit. “Don’t let me have any more of your impertinence, young woman,” she said. “Mr. Jeffray’s in bed with the small-pox. There’s the long and short of it. I reckon you had better be moving.” Bess’s face had softened of a sudden, and there was a pathetic drooping of her mouth. “Mr. Jeffray—ill!” “Didn’t I say so, saucy! The poor young gentleman’s quite out of his senses. Here is Mr. Gladden coming down the stairs; he’s good at persuading them as are not wanted, to go.” But Bess did not wait for Peter Gladden’s advent. She turned away suddenly from Mrs. Barbara, and went down out of the porch with a look as of pain upon her face. XXI