“’Cause of the woman as was a-washing of herself, sir,” said Mrs. Tolladay, modestly looking down. “Sarah can’t abide him for that; but I says as maybe it was a strange sight so long agone. Folks wasn’t so thoughtful of washings and so forth in old times. When I was in service myself, which is a good bit since, there wasn’t near the fuss about baths as there is nowadays, not even among the gentlefolks. Says Mrs. Matthews, ‘He was a man after God’s own heart, he was.’ ‘I ain’t a-goin’ to find fault with my Maker, it ain’t my place,’ says Sarah; ‘but I don’t approve o’ his taste.’ And that’s as true as I stand here. She’s a bold woman, is old Sarah. There’s many as might think it, but few as would say it. Anyhow, I can’t get it out o’ my mind as it was somehow Mr. Herbert as we was a chanting of, and never King David. Poor man, he’s dead this years and years,” said Mrs. Tolladay, “and you know, as well as me, sir, that there are no devices nor labors found, nor wisdom, as the hymn says, underneath the ground.” “Well, Mrs. Tolladay,” said the vicar, who had laughed his laugh out, and bethought himself of what was due to his profession, “let us hope that young Mr. Austin’s desires will all be good ones, and that so we may pray God to give them to him, without anything amiss coming of it.” “That’s just what I say, sir,” said Mrs. Tolladay, “it’s for all the world like the toasts as used to be the fashion in my young days, when folks drank not to your health, as they do now, but to your wishes, if so be as they were vartuous. Many a time that’s been done to me, when I was a young girl; and I am sure,” she added with a curtsey, taking the glass of wine with which the vicar usually rewarded the amusement her gossip gave him, “as I may say that to you and not be afraid; I drink to your wishes, sir.” “As long as they are virtuous,” said the vicar, laughing; and for a long time after he was very fond of retailing old Sarah’s difference of opinion with her Maker, which perhaps the gentle reader may have heard attributed to a much more important person.