‘Whenever I see her she is as fine as fine can be; but perhaps she has some excuse for it, for she is very handsome, and she has a kind face too; one would wonder how she could be that fellow’s sister. Then there’s Mrs. Shuttleworth, that has the grand yellow carriage, but she is better than some of them; and she looks ill, poor thing! so perhaps her finery only gives her very little comfort.’ ‘It seems to me that you have an excuse for them all,’ said Miss Blisset. ‘Perhaps I have--for all but one--the proudest and the finest of the whole lot. I’d rather have any of them than her--and that’s Mrs. Mallory of the Oakenrod.’ ‘Mrs. Mal----’ began Adrienne quickly, and then stopped abruptly. ‘Do you know her?’ she added. ‘I know this much of her, that I work in their factory, and she comes looking round now and then, behaving as if she thought that I, and the factories, and the town, and the world in general were made for her pleasure and service. Oh, she’s a proud, insolent woman, Mrs. Mallory; all the Mallorys are proud and insolent. It would do them good to be humbled, and I hope they will be.’ ‘Oh! how can you be so bitter against them?’ said she, as if shocked. ‘No, I’m not bitter; but I don’t like to see people like that giving themselves airs, looking as if the world’s prosperity depended upon their continuing to favour it by living in it, when any one knows that if they had their bread to earn they couldn’t do it. I like justice.’ ‘Justice, and a little generosity with it,’ said she, gently, smiling in what appeared to Myles a very attractive manner. ‘We are here in Blake Street,’ said he; ‘which way do we turn?’ ‘To the right, please. My uncle’s house is at the very end of the street.’ ‘The end--it must be lonely,’ observed Myles. ‘Yes, it is, rather. He lives at Stonegate.’ ‘Stonegate!’ echoed Myles. ‘I’ve often wondered who lived there, and never knew. Why, it is part of the Mallorys’ property,’ he said suddenly. ‘Yes; I believe it is,’ she replied composedly. ‘My uncle has lived there for ten years now.’ There was a little pause, and then Myles said, ‘You will excuse me, but I don’t really think it is fit for you to walk all that long way of an evening, especially now that it gets dark so soon, and after what has happened to-night.’ ‘I suppose I shall have to give it up. Luckily I am nearly at the end of my task. So I shall try to finish it.’ ‘Your reading?’ he said inquiringly. ‘Yes. References for my uncle’s book. He is writing a book about Art and the Development of Civilisation: he is too infirm to go to the library himself, and I like going there. I have been reading up music for him all summer.’ ‘Oh, that’s it!’ said Myles, in a tone which betrayed ingenuously enough that he had thought often and deeply upon the subject. ‘Yes, that is it. I must really try to go a few times more, because those books may not be removed from the library; and then I shall not need to go any more.’