"Nay, sir," sobbed Jane, "that is what I want to know. Our dame ne'er found a fault in me; and now she does pack me off like a dog. Me that have been here this six years, and got to feel at home. What will father say? He'll give me a hiding. For two pins I'd drown myself in the mere." "Come, you must not blame the mistress," said the sly Ryder. "She is a good mistress as ever breathed: 't is all the priest's doings. I'll tell you the truth, master, if you will pass me your word I sha'n't be sent away for it." "I pledge you my word as a gentleman," said Griffith. "Well then, sir, Jane's fault is yours and mine. She is not a Papist; and that is why she is to go. How I come to know, I listened in the next room, and heard the priest tell our dame she must send away two of us, and have Catholics. The priest's word it is law in this house. 'T was in March he gave the order: Harriet, she went in May, and now poor Jane is to go--for walking to church behind _you_, sir. But there, Jane, I believe he would get our very master out of the house if he could; and then what would become of us all?" Griffith turned black, and then ashy pale, under this venomous tongue, and went away without a word, looking dangerous. Ryder looked after him, and her black eye glittered with a kind of fiendish beauty. Jane, having told her mind, now began to pluck up a little spirit. "Mrs. Ryder," said she, "I never thought to like you so well";--and, with that, gave her a great, hearty, smacking kiss; which Ryder, to judge by her countenance, relished, as epicures albumen. "I won't cry no more. After all, this house is no place for us that be women; 't is a fine roost, to be sure! where the hen she crows and the cock do but cluck." Town-bred Ryder laughed at the rustic maid's simile; and, not to be outdone in metaphor, told her there were dogs that barked, and dogs that bit. "Our master is one of those that bite. I've done the priest's business. He is as like to get the sack as you are." * * * * * Griffith found his wife seated on the lawn reading. He gulped down his ire as well as he could; but nevertheless his voice trembled a little with suppressed passion. "So Jane is turned off now," said he. "I don't know about being turned off," replied Mrs. Gaunt, calmly; "but she leaves me next month, and Cicely Davis comes back." "And Cicely Davis is a useless slut that cannot boil a potato fit to eat; but then she is a Papist, and poor Jenny is a Protestant, and can cook a dinner." "My dear," said Mrs. Gaunt, "do not you trouble about the servants; leave them to me." "And welcome; but this is not your doing, it is that Leonard's: and I cannot allow a Popish priest to turn off all my servants that are worth their salt. Come, Kate, you used to be a sensible woman, and a tender wife; now I ask you, is a young bachelor a fit person to govern a man's family?"