"They are just crazy about it upstairs. Ginger and the Gaffer are the
worst. They say they had better sell the place and build another house
somewhere else. None of the county people will call on them now--and just
as they were beginning to get on so well! Miss Mary, too, is terrible cut
up about it; she says it will interfere with her prospects, and that
Ginger has nothing to do now but to marry the kitchen-maid to complete the
ruin of the Barfields."

"Miss Mary is far too kind to say anything to wound another's feelings. It
is only a nasty old deceitful thing like yourself who could think of such
a thing."

"Eh, you got it there, my lady," said Sarah, who had had a difference with
Grover, and was anxious to avenge it.

Grover looked at Sarah in astonishment, and her look clearly said, "Is
everyone going to side with that little kitchen-maid?"

Then, to flatter Mrs. Latch, Sarah spoke of the position the Latches had
held three generations ago; the Barfields were then nobodies; they had
nothing even now but their money, and that had come out of a livery
stable. "And it shows, too; just compare Ginger with young Preston or
young Northcote. Anyone could tell the difference."

Esther listened with an unmoved face and a heavy ache in her heart. She
had now not an enemy nor yet an opponent; the cause of rivalry and
jealousy being removed, all were sorry for her. They recognised that she
had suffered and was suffering, and seeing none but friends about her, she
was led to think how happy she might have been in this beautiful house if
it had not been for William. She loved her work, for she was working for