‘That was nonsense,’ said Rose; ‘that was always quite out of the question; how could you have married a poor labourer after having been used to live with us, and have every comfort? It would have killed you, Keziah; you were never very strong, you know; and only think! you that have had fires in your room, and nice luncheons three or four times a day, how could you ever live upon a bit of bacon and weak tea, like the women in the cottages? You never could have married him.’ ‘That is what aunt used to tell me,’ said Keziah faintly; ‘she said I should have been the first to repent; but then Miss Anne----’ ‘Oh, never mind Miss Anne--she is so romantic. She never thinks about bread and butter,’ said Rose. ‘Jim is out of the question, and there is no use thinking of him; but old Saymore is just as bad,’ said the little oracle; ‘I am not sure that he isn’t the worst of the two.’ ‘Do you think so, Miss Rose?’ said Keziah wistfully. It was an ease to her mind to have her allegiance to Jim spoken of so lightly. Anne had treated it as a solemn matter, as if it were criminal to ‘break it off;’ whereas Keziah’s feeling was that she had a full right to choose for herself in the matter. But old Saymore was a different question. If she could have had the ‘Black Bull’ without him, no doubt it would have been much better. And now here was a rainbow glimmer of possible glories better even than the ‘Black Bull’ passing over her path! She looked up with tears in her eyes. Something pricked her for her disloyalty to Miss Anne, but Miss Rose was ‘more comforting like.’ Perhaps this wiser counsellor would even yet see some solution to the question, so that poor old Saymore might be left out of it. ‘I think,’ said Rose with decision, ‘that suppose I had been engaged to anyone, when I left Mount, I should have given it up. I should have said, “I am going into the world. I don’t know what may be best now; things will be so very different. Of course, I don’t want to be disagreeable, but I must do the best for myself.” And anybody of sense would have seen it and consented to it,’ said Rose. ‘Of course you must always do the best you can for yourself.’ ‘Yes, Miss Rose,’ said Keziah. This chimed with her own profoundest instincts. ‘But then there’s mother and the boys. Mother was to be in the kitchen, and Johnny in the stable, and little Tom bred up for a waiter. It was setting them all up in the world, aunt said.’ ‘All that may be very well,’ said Rose. ‘Of course it is always right to be kind to your mother and the rest. But remember that your first duty is always to yourself. And if you like to come with me, I am to have a maid all to myself, Keziah; and you would soon find someone better than old Saymore, if you wanted to marry. You may be very sure of that.’