Still looking at Miss Meredith, the man shrugged his shoulders, and replied, "Bain't vor the bikes of ar to zay Mister Cauldwell bai a liar." Yet the voice and manner left little doubt in the hearers as to the speaker's private opinion, and Janice laughed, partly at the implication, but more in nervousness. "What kind of work are ye used to?" asked Mr. Meredith. The man hesitated for a moment and then muttered crossly, "Ar indentured vor to work, not to bai questioned." "Then work ye shall have," cried the squire, hotly. "Peg, show him the stable, and tell Tom--" "One moment, Lambert," interjected his wife, and then she asked, "Hast thou had breakfast, Charles?" Fownes shook his head sullenly. "Take him to the kitchen and give him some at once, Peg," ordered Mrs. Meredith. For the first time the fellow looked away from Janice, fixing his eyes on Mrs. Meredith. Then he bowed easily and gracefully, saying, "Thank you." Apparently unconscious that for a moment he had left the Somerset burr off his tongue and the rustic pretence from his manner, he followed Peg to the kitchen. If he were unconscious of the slip, it was more than were his auditors, and for a moment they all exchanged glances in silent bewilderment. "Humph!" finally growled the squire. "I like the look of him still less." "He holds himself like a gentleman," asserted Tabitha. "This fellow will need close watching," predicted Mr. Meredith. "He 's no yokel. He moves like a gentleman or a house-servant. Yet he had to make his mark on the covenant." "I think, dadda," said Miss Meredith, in her most calmly judicial manner, "that the new man is a born villain, and has committed some terrible crime. He has a horrid, wicked face, and he stares just as--as--so that one wants to shiver." Mrs. Meredith rose. "Janice," she chided, "thou 't too young to make thy opinions of the slightest value. Go to thy spinet, child, and don't let me hear any more such foolish babble. Charles has a good face, and will make a good servant." "I don't care what mommy thinks," Miss Meredith confided to Tabitha in the parlour, as the one took her seat at an embroidery frame and the other at the spinet. "I know he's a bad man, and will end by killing one of us and stealing the silver and a horse, just as Mr. Vreeland's bond-servant did. He makes me think of the villain in 'The Tragic History of Sir Watkins Stokes and Lady Betty Artless.'" IV AN APPLE OF DISCORD