"I can't stay here unless something to make things better happens. Oh, mother," she said, fervently, after a pause, "I do so hate Mr. Garratt." Hannah heard the last words and stopped. "It's a pity you don't tell him so," she said, "instead of always trying to draw him to yourself. You make one ashamed of your boldness." "He came first because of Hannah, Margey, dear, and is as good as her promised husband," Mrs. Vincent urged. "But he hasn't spoken--" "And never will if you can help it," Hannah answered, quickly. "Besides, it's my opinion that he doesn't want to be related to an unbeliever--and perhaps something worse. It's just what he thought would happen about the Australian business." "What do you mean?" Mrs. Vincent looked up aghast. "What I mean is that we don't know anything about--father," Hannah answered, hesitating before she said the last word. "We never set eyes on any one belonging to him; we have only his word for it that he has got this brother; for all we know to the contrary he may have married another woman before he came here, and have gone back to her. There is nothing to hold him to what is right, or to help him to choose between right and wrong. For my part, I only hope that I may be out of the place before he comes into it again--if he ever does set foot in it again--for I hate the ground he treads on, and the ground that Margaret treads on, too--so now I've said it. It's my belief that the Lord will provide for them both some day according to their deserts." Mrs. Vincent rose from her chair and stood with her back to the fireplace. Her face looked drawn and haggard, her lips were almost rigid, but her voice came clear and low. It fell upon Hannah like a lash. "You are a malicious woman, Hannah," she said, "and I am ashamed of you. I know everything about him, and that is enough. I have held my tongue because you have never treated him as you should, and his affairs are no business of yours. But you ought to be ashamed of your thoughts; and as for religion, it is you that want it, not he. It's the leading of a good life, the telling of the truth, and the thinking well of others that makes religion and will gain heaven--that's my belief. Those that do different are as good as denying God. I said it to your grandparents long ago, and I say it again to you to-day." Mrs. Vincent's diction was not always strictly correct, but her meaning was clear enough. "And I know everything about father, too," Margaret said, gently--for somehow she was sorry for Hannah--"and I cannot think why you should hate him--or even why you should hate me." She went a step out into the garden, and as she stood with her head raised, looking up at the high woods beyond, Hannah felt insensibly that there was a difference between them against which it was hopeless to contend--not merely a difference in looks, but a difference of class. It was one of the things she resented most.