"Who to?" said Gwenda. "He can't marry _all_ the girls----"

She stopped herself. Essy Gale was in the room. Three months ago
Essy had been a servant at the Farm where her mother worked once a
fortnight.

She had come in so quietly that none of them had noticed her. She
brought a tray with a fresh glass of water for the Vicar and a glass
of milk for Alice. She put it down quietly and slipped out of the room
without her customary "Anything more, Miss?" and "Good-night."

"What's the matter with Essy?" Gwenda said.

Nobody spoke but Alice who was saying that she didn't want her milk.

More than a year ago Alice had been ordered milk for her anæmia. She
had milk at eleven, milk at her midday dinner, milk for supper, and
milk last thing at night. She did not like milk, but she liked being
ordered it. Generally she would sit and drink it, in the face of
her family, pathetically, with little struggling gulps. She took a
half-voluptuous, half-vindictive pleasure in her anæmia. She knew that
it made her sisters sorry for her, and that it annoyed her father.

Now she declared that she wasn't feeling well, and that she didn't
want her milk.

"In that case," said Mr. Cartaret, "you had better go to bed."

Alice went, raising her white arms and rubbing her eyes along the