Milly could no longer shut her eyes to the fact, that the Countess was inconsiderate, if she did not allow herself to entertain severer thoughts; and she began to feel that it would soon be a duty to tell her frankly that they really could not afford to have her visit farther prolonged. But a process was going forward in two other minds, which ultimately saved Milly from having to perform this painful task. In the first place, the Countess was getting weary of Shepperton--weary of waiting for her brother’s overtures which never came; so, one fine morning, she reflected that forgiveness was a Christian duty, that a sister should be placable, that Mr. Bridmain must feel the need of her advice, to which he had been accustomed for three years, and that very likely ‘that woman’ didn’t make the poor man happy. In this amiable frame of mind she wrote a very affectionate appeal, and addressed it to Mr. Bridmain, through his banker. Another mind that was being wrought up to a climax was Nanny’s, the maid-of-all-work, who had a warm heart and a still warmer temper. Nanny adored her mistress: she had been heard to say, that she was ‘ready to kiss the ground as the missis trod on’; and Walter, she considered, was _her_ baby, of whom she was as jealous as a lover. But she had, from the first, very slight admiration for the Countess Czerlaski. That lady, from Nanny’s point of view, was a personage always ‘drawed out i’ fine clothes’, the chief result of whose existence was to cause additional bed-making, carrying of hot water, laying of table-cloths, and cooking of dinners. It was a perpetually heightening ‘aggravation’ to Nanny that she and her mistress had to ‘slave’ more than ever, because there was this fine lady in the house. ‘An’ she pays nothin’ for’t neither,’ observed Nanny to Mr. Jacob Tomms, a young gentleman in the tailoring line, who occasionally--simply out of a taste for dialogue--looked into the vicarage kitchen of an evening. ‘I know the master’s shorter o’ money than iver, an’ it meks no end o’ difference i’ th’ housekeepin’--her bein’ here, besides bein’ obliged to have a charwoman constant.’ ‘There’s fine stories i’ the village about her,’ said Mr. Tomms. ‘They say as Muster Barton’s great wi’ her, or else she’d niver stop here.’ ‘Then they say a passill o’ lies, an’ you ought to be ashamed to go an’ tell ’em o’er again. Do _you_ think as the master, as has got a wife like the missis, ’ud go running arter a stuck-up piece o’ goods like that Countess, as isn’t fit to black the missis’s shoes? I’m none so fond o’ the master, but I know better on him nor that.’ ‘Well, I didn’t b’lieve it,’ said Mr. Tomms, humbly. ‘B’lieve it? you’d ha’ been a ninny if yer did. An’ she’s a nasty, stingy thing, that Countess. She’s niver giv me a sixpence nor an old rag neither, sin’ here’s she’s been. A-lyin’ a bed an a-comin’ down to breakfast when other folks wants their dinner!’