"You shall go over it as often as you like," said Lady Ogram, with a grin. "But Miss Bride has more to tell you." Constance looked inquiringly. "Statistics?" she asked, when Lady Ogram paid no heed to her look. "Don't be stupid. Tell him what I think about villages altogether." "Yes, I should very much like to hear that," said Dyce, whose confidence was gaining ground. "Lady Ogram doesn't like the draining of the country population into towns; she thinks it a harmful movement, with bad results on social and political life, on national life from every point of view This seems to her to be the great question of the day. How to keep up village life?--in face of the fact that English agriculture seems to be doomed. At Shawe, as Lady Ogram thinks, and we all do, a step has been taken in the right direction. Lots of the young people who are now working here in wholesome surroundings would by this time have been lost in the slums of London or Liverpool or Birmingham. Of course, as a mill-owner, she has made sacrifices; she hasn't gone about the business with only immediate profit in view; children and girls have been taught what they wouldn't have learnt but for Lady Ogram's kindness." "Admirable!" murmured Mr. Gallantry. "True philanthropy, and true patriotism!" "Beyond a doubt," agreed Dyce. "Lady Ogram deserves well of her country." "There's just one way," remarked Mrs. Gallantry, "in which, it seems to me, she could have deserved better. Don't be angry with me, Lady Ogram; you know I profit by your example in saying just what I think. Now, if, instead of a mill, you had built a training institution for domestic service--" "Bah!" broke in the hostess. "How you harp on that idea! Haven't you any other?" "One or two more, I assure you," replied Mrs. Gallantry, with the utmost good-humour. "But I particularly want to interest you in this one. It's better that girls should work in a mill in the country than go to swell the population of slums; I grant you that. But how much better still for them to work in private houses, following their natural calling, busy with the duties of domestic life. They're getting to hate that as much as their menfolk hate agricultural labour; and what could be a worse symptom or a greater danger?" "Pray," cried Lady Ogram, in her grating voice, "how would a servants' school have helped the village?" "Not so quickly, perhaps, but in time. With your means and influence, Lady Ogram, you might have started an institution which would be the model of its kind for all England. Every female child in Shawe would have had a prospect before her, and the village would have attracted decent poor families, who might somehow have been helped to support themselves--" Lady Ogram waved her hand contemptuously. "Somehow! That's the way with your conservative-reform women. Somehow! Always vague, rambling notions--"