"If your heart wasn't in it, it must have been torture, I've always had a lax bringing up as regards church, but somehow from a child I enjoyed it. About eighteen months ago I had an accident in the hunting field, and was laid up on my back for a year. I went to my brother's house in the Highlands, and used to hear the church bells across the loch as I lay on my couch and longed that I could go. After a year's privation from church-going, I went out to India, and there we only got a service about once a month when we were in the hills—at other times a church parade lasting about half an hour. Now since we have been back in England I'm thoroughly enjoying my church. I learnt a lot of things when I was lying on my back, and it is a matter of principle with me to have a quiet day on Sunday; I hope you don't like me the less for it."
"I didn't think you were that sort," Mrs. Burke said. Her tone was almost sulky.
"Have we made a mistake? Shall I throw it up, and go away with my sister?"
"Good heavens, no! You shall have your Sundays, but don't let me feel you're carping at us if we can't live up to your level."
"My dear Mrs. Burke, if you saw into my mind you would know that it's the last thing I would do. I'm such a stumbling sort of creature myself, that I feel at the very lowest level of all. One day, when I'm more at home with you, perhaps you'll let me tell you of a bit of my Highland experience. Till then believe me, that I shall never be your critic. I have come here to give you my help, and I honestly will try to do my best in your service."
Mrs. Burke's face cleared.
"All serene then! And now we'll talk of other things. Do you know the Fortescue Bakers? I hear they have just taken a farm house near here. They've bought it, and mean to turn it into a lovely little house. He is an artist you know, and bound to make everything beautiful that lies across his path."
Rowena listened to the local gossip, and pleased Mrs. Burke by her interest and sympathy.
For a wonder Mrs. Burke was alone. She was expecting visitors the next day. After dinner they strolled through the beautifully kept grounds, and Mrs. Burke told Rowena the details of her past life.
"I was, as I told you this afternoon, a parson's daughter, and my father was of the strict evangelical school. We were supposed to live apart from all worldly gaieties. Never allowed to dance, or go to a play, or enjoy ourselves with any young people who did so. And strange to say I was content and even happy in those days. I was the youngest. Two of my sisters married neighbouring curates. One is now a missionary with her husband in China; the other is in Liverpool. I have lost touch with her; we did correspond before my husband's death, but she and her husband thoroughly disapprove of me. My third sister was the one who kept everything going at home, but a bad time came. Our mother, who was always delicate, went down with 'the Flu.' It raged round us. One of my brothers had it with the complication of double pneumonia, and both he and my mother died. Then my sister got it and went into a decline. She was overworked and could not battle with it. I was just seventeen then, so had to take command and run the house and parish. There was never a question of recreation or rest for a parson's daughter. We were wretchedly poor, and the struggle to keep up appearances was awful. My remaining brother was at college, and we fought hard to keep him there. I often wish he had earned his bread in a humbler sort of way, for three years afterwards he died in London—a question of underfeeding and overwork—the same as my poor sister. I can tell you the record of those years sent the iron into my soul. There is no tragedy so great as some of these parsons' lives! Well, to make a long story short, my father died when I was twenty-three, and I was left penniless and homeless."