“I trust that you will not take it amiss that I should speak to you on such a subject,” said the old clergyman, clearing his throat; his pretty, old pink cheek growing quite red with agitation. “I take the very greatest interest in both you and your sister, Miss Susan. You are both of you considerably younger than I am, and I have been here now more than a dozen years, and one cannot help taking an interest in anything connected with the family--” “No, indeed; one cannot help it; it would be quite unnatural if one did not take an interest,” said Mrs. Richard, backing him up. “But nobody objects to your taking an interest,” said Miss Susan. “I think it, as you say, the most natural thing in the world.” “Thanks, thanks, for saying so!” said Dr. Richard with enthusiasm; and then he looked at his wife, and his wife at him, and there was an awful pause. “My dear, good, excellent people,” said Miss Susan, hurriedly, “for Heaven’s sake, if there is any bad news coming, out with it at once!” “No, no; no bad news!” said Dr. Richard; and then he cleared his throat. “The fact is, I came to speak to you--about Miss Augustine. I am afraid her eccentricity is increasing. It is painful, very painful to me to say so, for but for her kindness my wife and I should not have been half so comfortable these dozen years past; but I think it a friend’s duty, not to say a clergyman’s. Miss Susan, you are aware that people say that she is--not quite right in her mind!” “I am aware that people talk a great deal of nonsense,” said Miss Susan, half-relieved, half-aggravated. “I should not wonder if they said I was mad myself.” “If they knew!” she added mentally, with a curious thrill of self-arraignment, judging her own cause, and in the twinkling of an eye running over the past and the future, and wondering, if she should ever be found out, whether people would say she was mad too. “No, no,” said the Doctor; “you are well known for one of the most sensible women in the county.” “Quite one of the most influential and well-known people in the county,” said Mrs. Richard, with an echo in which there was always an individual tone. “Well, well; let that be as it may,” said Miss Susan, not dissatisfied with this appreciation; “and what has my sister done--while I have been absent, I suppose?” “It is a matter of great gravity, and closely concerning myself,” said Dr. Richard, with some dignity. “You are aware, Miss Susan, that my office as Warden of the Almshouses is in some respects an anomalous one, making me, in some degree, subordinate, or apparently so, in my ecclesiastical position to--in fact, to a lady. It is quite a strange, almost unprecedented, combination of circumstances.” “Very strange indeed,” said Mrs. Richard. “My husband, in his ecclesiastical position, as it were subordinate--to a lady.” “Pardon me,” said Miss Susan; “I never interfere with Augustine. You knew how it would be when you came.”