"I expect there are some there. There generally are," said Robin.
They both laughed; but the vicar gently shook his head. "Ah well, poor thing," he said, "she has an uphill life of it. They don't seem able—they don't seem to understand the art of making both ends meet."
"It's a great art," said Robin.
"Perhaps they could be helped," said Priscilla, already arranging in her mind to go and do it.
"They do not belong to the class one can help. And Lady Shuttleworth, I am afraid, disapproves of shiftless people too much to do anything in the way of reducing the rent."
"Lady Shuttleworth can't stand people who don't look happy and don't mend their apron," said Robin.
"But it's her own apron," objected Priscilla.
"Exactly," said Robin.
"Well, well, I hope they'll make you comfortable," said the vicar; and having nothing more that he could well say without having to confess to himself that he was inquisitive, he began to draw Robin away. "We shall see you and your uncle on Sunday in church, I hope," he said benevolently, and took off his hat and showed his snow-white hair.
Priscilla hesitated. She was, it is true, a Protestant, it having been arranged on her mother's marriage with the Catholic Grand Duke that every alternate princess born to them was to belong to the Protestant faith, and Priscilla being the alternate princess it came about that of the Grand Duke's three children she alone was not a Catholic. Therefore she could go to church in Symford as often as she chose; but it was Fritzing's going that made her hesitate, for Fritzing was what the vicar would have called a godless man, and never went to church.