digest them.”        Though pious and patriotic, and a great moral asset for the house, she lacked that pliancy and tact which her mother so much valued, and had expected her to pick up for herself. Harriet, if she had been allowed, would have driven Lilia to an open rupture, and, what was worse, she would have done the same to Philip two years before, when he returned full of passion for Italy, and ridiculing Sawston and its ways.     

       “It’s a shame, Mother!” she had cried. “Philip laughs at everything—the Book Club, the Debating Society, the Progressive Whist, the bazaars. People won’t like it. We have our reputation. A house divided against itself cannot stand.”      

       Mrs. Herriton replied in the memorable words, “Let Philip say what he likes, and he will let us do what we like.” And Harriet had acquiesced.     

       They sowed the duller vegetables first, and a pleasant feeling of righteous fatigue stole over them as they addressed themselves to the peas. Harriet stretched a string to guide the row straight, and Mrs. Herriton scratched a furrow with a pointed stick. At the end of it she looked at her watch.     

       “It’s twelve! The second post’s in. Run and see if there are any letters.”      

       Harriet did not want to go. “Let’s finish the peas. There won’t be any letters.”      

       “No, dear; please go. I’ll sow the peas, but you shall cover them up—and mind the birds don’t see ‘em!”      

       Mrs. Herriton was very careful to let those peas trickle evenly from her hand, and at the end of the row she was conscious that she had never sown better. They were expensive too.     

       “Actually old Mrs. Theobald!” said Harriet, returning.     

       “Read me the letter. My hands are dirty. How intolerable the crested paper is.”      

       Harriet opened the envelope.     

       “I don’t understand,” she said; “it doesn’t make sense.”      

       “Her letters never did.”      

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