“Oh, as for the goodness,” he said. And then he remembered Miss Mildmay’s advice, and rubbed his hands over his eyes as if to take something out of them which he feared was there. Katherine sat down and looked at him very kindly, but her recollection was chiefly of the strong white teeth with which he had eaten the bread-and-butter in the dark of the winter morning after _that_ night. It was the only breakfast he was likely to have, going off as he did on her concerns, and he had been called out of his bed in the middle of the night, and had passed a long time by her father’s bedside. All these things made the simple impromptu meal very necessary; but still she had kept the impression on her mind of his strong teeth taking a large bite of the bread-and-butter, which was neither sentimental nor romantic. This was about all that passed between them on that day. CHAPTER XXIII. The village society in Sliplin was not to be despised, especially by a girl who had no pretensions, like Katherine. When a person out of the larger world comes into such a local society, it is inevitable that he or she should look upon it with a more or less courteous contempt, and that the chief members should condole with him or her upon the inferiority of the new surroundings, and the absence of those intellectual and other advantages which he or she is supposed to have tasted in London, for example. But, as a matter of fact, the intellectual advantages are much more in evidence on the lower than on the higher ground. Lady Jane, no doubt, had her own particular box from Mudie’s and command of all the magazines, &c., at first hand; but then she read very little, having the Mudie books chiefly for her governess, and glancing only at some topic of the day, some great lady’s predilections on Society and its depravity, or some fad which happened to be on the surface for the moment, and which everybody was expected to be able to discuss. Whereas the Sliplin ladies read all the books, vying with each other who should get them first, and were great in the _Nineteenth Century_ and the _Fortnightly_, and all the more weighty periodicals. They were members of mutual improvement societies, and of correspondence classes, and I don’t know all what. Some of them studied logic and other appalling subjects through the latter means, and many of them wrote modest little essays and chronicles of their reading for the press. When the University Extension Lectures were set up quite a commotion was made in the little town. Mr. Stanley, the rector, and Dr. Burnet were both on the committee, and everybody went to hear the lectures. They were one year on the History of the Merovingians, and another year on Crockery--I mean Pottery, or rather Ceramic Art--and a third upon the Arctic Circle. They were thus calculated to produce a broad general intelligence, people said, though it was more difficult to see how they extended the system of the Universities, which seldom