Susannah, a pretty Irish girl, looked up from a letter she was reading, and blushed.
"Oh, Lady Beltham, I've been ever so much less hungry since Harry's ship sailed."
"I don't quite see the connection," Lady Beltham answered. "Love is good nourishment for the soul, but not for the body. However, a good appetite is nothing to be ashamed of, and you ought to keep your roses for your future husband, and qualify in every way to be an excellent mother of a family."
"With lots and lots of children," Lisbeth went on wickedly: "seven or eight daughters at the very least, all of whom will marry nice young clergymen when their time comes and----"
She stopped speaking and the light chatter died away as a footman entered and announced the Reverend William Hope, who followed him immediately into the room, an elderly man with a full, clean-shaven face and a comfortable portliness of figure.
"I am delighted you are back," she said. "Will you have a cup of tea with us?"
The parson made a general bow to the girls gathered about the table.
"I got a wretched dinner in the train," he began, but Lisbeth interrupted him.
"Don't you think this tea smells delicious?" she asked.
The parson put out his hand to take the cup she offered to him, and bowed and smiled.
"Precisely what I was going to observe, Miss Lisbeth."
Thérèse and Susannah turned away to hide their amusement, and Lady Beltham adroitly changed the subject. She moved towards her writing-table.
"Mr. Hope must have much to tell me, girls, and it is getting late. I must get to business. Did you have a good journey?"
"Quite as good as usual, Lady Beltham. The people at Scotwell Hill are very plucky and good, but it will be a hard winter; there is snow on the hills already."
"Have the women and children had all their woollen things?"
"Oh, yes: twelve hundred garments have been distributed according to a list drawn up by the under-steward; here it is," and he handed a paper to Lady Beltham, who passed it on to Susannah.
"I will ask you to check the list," she said to the girl, and turned again to the clergyman. "The under-steward is a good fellow, but he is a rabid politician; he may have omitted some families that are openly radical; but I think charity should be given equally to all, for poverty makes no political distinctions."