His irritation had all died away. His tone was one of indescribable depression, and his great black eyes were fixed on Robert with a melancholy which startled his companion by a subtle transition Elsmere felt himself touched with a pang of profound pity for the man who an instant before had seemed to pose as his scornful superior. He stretched out his hand, and laid it on his friend’s shoulder. Rose spent the afternoon in helping Catherine with various parochial occupations. In the course of them Catherine asked many questions about Long Whindale. Her thoughts clung to the hills, to the gray farmhouses, the rough men and women inside them. But Rose gave her small satisfaction. ‘Poor old Jim Backhouse!’ said Catherine, sighing; Agnes tells me he is quite bedridden now.’ ‘Well, and a good thing for John, don’t you think--’ said Rose briskly, covering a parish library book the while in a way which made Catherine’s fingers itch to take it from her--‘and for us? It’s some use having a carrier now.’ Catherine made no reply. She thought of the ‘noodle’, fading out of life in the room where Mary Backhouse died; she actually saw the white hair, the blurred eyes, the palsied hands, the poor emaciated limbs stretched along the settle. Her heart rose, but she said nothing. ‘And has Mrs. Thornburgh been enjoying her summer?’ ‘Oh! I suppose so,’ said Rose, her tone indicating a quite measureless indifference. ‘She had another young Oxford man staying with her in June--a missionary--and it annoyed her very much that neither Agnes nor I would intervene to prevent his resuming his profession. She seemed to think it was a question of saving him from being eaten, and apparently he would have proposed to either of us.’ Catherine could not help laughing. ‘I suppose she still thinks she married Robert and me.’ ‘Of course. So she did.’ Catherine colored a little, but Rose’s hard lightness of tone was unconquerable. ‘Or if she didn’t,’ Rose resumed, ‘nobody could have the heart to rob her of the illusion. Oh, by the way, Sarah has been under warning since June! Mrs. Thornburgh told her desperately that she must either throw over her young man, who was picked up drunk at the Vicarage gate one night, or vacate the Vicarage kitchen. Sarah cheerfully accepted her month’s notice, and is still making the Vicarage jams and walking out with the young man every Sunday. Mr. Thornburgh sees that it will require a convulsion of nature to get rid either of Sarah or the young man, and has succumbed.’ ‘And the Tysons? And that poor Walker girl?’ ‘Oh, dear me, Catherine!’ said Rose, a strange disproportionate flash of impatience breaking through. ‘Everyone in Long Whindale is always just where and what they were last year. I admit they are born and die, but they do nothing else of a decisive kind.’ Catherine’s hands worked away for a while, then she laid down her book and said, lifting her clear, large eyes on her sister,--