Believing thus, her piety overflowed, not in the observance of fasts, nor in attendance at public services, but in works of benevolence. In the country parish where she had formerly lived she had discharged all the duties of a curate, except those connected with public worship. The cottagers believed in her more than in the Rector; on several occasions she had been asked to baptize some new-born infant whose little life seemed to be guttering out. Those of such children who survived were regarded as singularly blest, and their parents showed great reluctance to let the ceremony be repeated in the church with the proper forms. She had been in still greater request as a peacemaker; no quarrel ever outlived her interference in that office. Yet she never scolded the people, and seldom rebuked them. Her method was to take the causes of mutual offence upon herself, and ask forgiveness from each in turn. It became imprudent for her to speak severely to any of the villagers, even when rebuke was called for. She found out once that a drunkard whom she had sternly reproved for ill-treatment of his children was set upon in consequence by the entire village and beaten dangerously. Her removal to London was felt like death. The whole country-side was downcast. She arranged to keep up the payment of all her alms by the hands of the Rector, but this was not felt as a consolation. Half the population of the parish followed her on the day she went away from them, the mothers crying and holding up their babes to take a last look at her, the children silent and hanging their heads. The fathers at work in the fields cast down their tools as the carriage went by, and came and stood in the road, with bared heads, till it had disappeared. Afterwards the Rector, himself a well-meaning but dull man, meeting one of the men on his way home, said that he was glad to see so much love shown by the people for her Grace. The man stared at him. “Us love she, sir? Why, that’s nought. ’Twere her as loved we, sir, better than us love each other.” When the Duchess settled in her son’s London house, she sought at once for the spot where such service as hers was most needed. She did not apply to the minister of the parish in which Colonsay House was situated, lest, tempted by her great rank, he might exaggerate the claims of his own district, and perhaps push out some humbler worker. For though every Calvinist is something of a republican, and the Duchess of Trent made it a point of conscience not to set value on the title she bore, a wise prudence taught her never to forget the importance attached to it by others, and the unwholesome influence it was likely to have over a certain class of minds. She knew how to distinguish with perfect clearness between the courtship paid to her rank and the love which she inspired on her own account; in this respect again resembling the monarch who was her friend.