One of them, who was the most good-natured and the best worker of the lot, used at times to chaff her, but she took it with stolid indifference, and so he gave it up. His name was Bob, and he was good-looking, with a square, open, ruddy face, bright blue eyes, and fair hair. He could eat a quantity of cheese and bread, and a big basin of porridge besides. The children used to sit round him on the form whenever they got the chance. It was really marvellous the way he never choked after gulping down a whole pint pot of beer. The other men-servants were not so interesting. They couldn’t ride a horse like him, they couldn’t walk like him, they couldn’t laugh like him. He was, in fact, about perfect. They were a very large family at the farm—too large for a poor man, or rather too large for an unlucky man. The farmer had not started life a poor man, that is speaking relatively. His grandfather had died a miller and maltster, leaving a fortune of some few thousands. But the son could never make things pay. His father had died when he was quite a boy, and his mother had carried on the business very efficiently till her son was of age. He had wished to enter a certain firm in a certain large town, but perhaps the ambition had not been strong enough, or his stern mother’s will had been too strong, for he followed in his father’s footsteps, and, like him, could not, as has been said, make it pay. He married young, a very pretty wife, and he was very proud of her, and she of him. But there is little doubt he was unfortunate in his marriage too. She had always been used to plenty at home, for her own brothers (she was an orphan) were on the whole good business men. It was considered when she married that she was doing very well. There had always been a certain amount of pride and reserve about her husband’s family that held them up as very respectable. They were supposed to have come of a good family, fond of fast living, who had fallen low. Her own brothers, especially her eldest one, were all prosperous men doing well; and what more natural than that she should suppose the same of her husband? She knew him to be clever, well liked, greatly respected, and much consulted by everyone. She therefore had no doubts at all that he was making money and laying by for future years. So one by one the little children came, and had all to be provided for. Ten of them there were, and two died young. Her own health failed as well, for she had never been strong, and there is no question that doctors’ bills ran away with more money even than hungry mouths. She was a wonderfully good housekeeper, scrupulously clean and neat in everything. Hospitable too; perhaps too hospitable, seeing her husband was the same. Hospitable people get encroached upon, you know. The people who receive from them salve their consciences by making themselves believe the givers are well off. Like most beliefs it is rotten, and worse than rotten.