She sat in the office and interviewed inspector and overseer; she stood in the store-room and weighed out stores for the cottagers. Everybody who came on the estate asked for the mistress, nobody ever wanted to see the master.
One day he took the children past a field in which cattle were grazing. He wanted to show them the cows and cautiously took them up to the grazing herd. All at once a black head, raised above the backs of the other animals, stared at the visitors, bellowing softly.
The lawyer picked up the children and ran back to the fence as hard as he could. He threw them over and tried to jump it himself, but was caught on the top. Noticing some women on the other side, he shouted:
“The bull! the bull!”
But the women merely laughed, and went to pull the children, whose clothes were covered with mud, out of the ditch.
“Don’t you see the bull?” he screamed.
“It’s no bull, sir,” replied the eldest of the women, “the bull was killed a fortnight ago.”
He came home, angry and ashamed and complained of the women to his wife. But she only laughed.
In the afternoon, as husband and wife were together in the drawing-room, there was a knock at the door.
“Come in!” she called out.