imagined that Mr. Kendal had brought you here for his sole behoof!'

'Then I shall look to you, Mr. Dusautoy.'

'No, I believe she is quite right,' he said. 'She says you ought to
undertake nothing till yon have had time to see what leisure you have
to give us.'

'Nay, I have been used to think the parish my business, home my
leisure.'

'Yes,' said Mrs. Dusautoy, 'but then you were the womankind of the
clergy, now you are a laywoman.'

'I think you have work at home,' said the Vicar.

'Work, but not work _enough!_' cried Albinia. 'The girls will help
me; only tell me what I may do.'

'I say, "what you can,"' said Mrs. Dusautoy. 'You see before you a
single-handed man. Only two of the ladies here can be called
coadjutors, one being poor little Genevieve Durant, the other the
bookseller's daughter, Clarissa Richardson, who made all the rest fly
off. All the others do what good they mean to do according to their
own sweet will, free and independent women, and we can't have any
district system, so I think you can only do what just comes to hand.'

Most heartily did Albinia undertake all that Mrs. Dusautoy would let
her husband assign to her.