As this history is for once to dwell in the highest circles, and deal only with people who may be called county people, and were of the highest importance in the district, it is scarcely necessary to speak of the smaller gentry. There were one or two small proprietors who farmed their own land, or who had so little land that it was scarcely worth farming, who lived about the skirts of the parish, and scarcely counted among its aristocracy. Some of these were so much nearer other parish churches that they did not even come to church at Markham Royal. Sir William Markham owned almost the whole of the parish. He had widened out his borders year by year during the long time he had held the property, and swallowed up various decaying houses of old squires. Such a little villa as Rosebank could not make any claim to be considered among the very smallest proprietors, and it was more to her devotion to the church than to anything else that Mrs. Booth owed her social elevation. She was very good in the parish. She and her niece visited the poor assiduously, and were familiar every-day visitors at the rectory, and so insensibly saw themselves received everywhere. They were the agents of almost every scheme of social improvement, always ready to act for the greater ladies, who had less time to spare, and content to pick up the crumbs of society from these great folks’ tables. Though they were quite insignificant in themselves they were in the midst of everything, and not unimportant members of the society which admitted them on sufferance, yet ended by being somewhat dependent upon them. If ever Miss Trevor enjoyed a holiday from her close attendance on her father, it was when Mrs. Booth had the carriage sent for her before luncheon and came to spend the day, with her dinner-dress and her cap in a little box. She could manage to guess at what the admiral meant, and she would play at backgammon with him, or read the newspapers, while Jane Trevor rested her weary soul in her own room, writing a detailed report to her aurist, or putting a few new verses into a book with a Bramah lock, which held the confidences of her life. It was Miss Booth who was the most popular of the two at Westland Towers, where Ada liked to have a hanger-on. But in the rectory they were both in their element--more familiar, and constantly interfering with Dolly, whom they both were very fond of, and whom they worried considerably. Rosebank had a balance and pendant in Elderbower, where lived an Indian officer and his family, but the Elders were a large family very much occupied with each other, with the cares of education, and making both ends meet; and consequently they took little part in what was going on, and need not be counted at all.