Catherine was fain to laugh. ‘When I begged Mrs. Polley to keep her errand-boy away from the shrubbery—away from the birds’ nests,’ the girl chimed in—‘Mrs. Polley was quite rude. “You must really look after him yourself, Miss,” she told me sharply; “he is my servant here, but he is not answerable to me when he is out of the shop. Excuse me, but it ain’t any call of mine to look after Mrs. Hilliard’s place. Let them idle fellows of gardeners as are in her pay see to that, I have enough to do with my business. You ladies would be the first to complain and leave the shop if it were neglected.”’ ‘There is something in that,’ said Mrs. Hilliard, candidly. ‘Indeed I have had thoughts of giving up Polley’s, because, according to cook, Mrs. Polley will not amend the error of her ways in the line of capers and cloves. I have meditated making an experiment in the new shop near the railway station, only I feared that, on the whole, I should be worse served there. For Mrs. Polley, to give the woman her due, knows her business, keeps a good article as a rule, and despises to ask an absurd price for it. As for her “Britons never shall be slaves” tone, it borders on the aggressive, but then it is the reverse of servility and it is the echo of a highly esteemed patriotic song. I imagine Oliver Constable will call it the expression of a fine independent spirit.’ ‘But what does Oliver Constable mean?’ repeated Catherine, looking as she was apt to do sometimes, hopelessly mystified in spite of her cleverness. ‘He means to regenerate the lower middle classes—to make all the members ladies and gentlemen in spite of themselves. Young Dadd must learn Greek, and carry Plato, instead of “Verdant Green” and “Mrs. Brown at Margate,” in his coat-pocket, and dip into ancient philosophy in the intervals of handling his shears or his yard measure, of cutting off a yard of lace, and calculating how much cloth is required for the present fashion in flounces. Mrs. Polley and her girls will attend evening classes for the higher education of women, and trip you and me up with an opinion on the tertiary formation, or the recently discovered satellite of Neptune, when our small minds are full of bloom raisins and Carolina rice.’ ‘But I thought you said he was to identify himself with the millers and bakers?’ ‘That goes without saying, you little goose. Charity begins at home.’ ‘But they will still be millers and bakers,’ hammered Catherine. ‘I should hope so. Let him make them what he likes, I trust he intends to leave us our flour and bread, else we shall be in a bad way. For, though the railway might bring us a supply from a distance, still we should miss a little, our breakfast and dinner rolls. Even these would be too heavy a price to pay for a young fanatic’s radicalism—is that the proper name to call it, Catherine?’ ‘I cannot tell,’ said Catherine, slowly, ‘but surely the thing itself is wasted on millers and bakers and common tradespeople.’