"His lordship," she said, "was engaged just then finishing a letter, and would see her presently."
As they were leaving the housekeeper's room, Mr. Frisk again presented himself, and with a low bow to Mrs. Brand, and a stare of intense admiration at Dorothy, informed the elder female that Mrs. Martin, the curate's wife, was waiting to speak to her.
"Tell her to step in here, Frisk, I will be back directly. Something about the Sunday-school, that my lord is about to establish," whispered Mrs. Brand to Dorothy. "They cannot get on without consulting me. This Mrs. Martin, our curate's wife, my lord wants to be superintendent of the school. My lord says, she is a clever, well-educated person, and he knows best; but between ourselves, I think her a poor, broken-spirited, yea and forsooth, young woman, with a large small family, and a nursing baby. She does not like the project at all.
"'Mrs. Brand,' says she, 'these Sunday-schools may answer very well in great cities, where the people are so wicked, but take my word for it, they will never do in a country-place, where the houses are so far apart, and the children have such a distance to come, and the winter days are so short. Besides, what's the use of my lord making such a fuss about teaching the poor. Does he want his servants to be as clever as himself—to read his books and papers instead of dusting his library. Learning and wealth make the only distinction between him and his people. If he gives them the one, the other will soon follow. It's little the poor folks will care for the title of my lord, when they find out that their title of free men possesses more real dignity.'
"Yes, my dear, she had the impudence to speak of the nobility in that disrespectful manner, as if there was nothing at all in blood, or superiority of race."
"I thought it was the fine clothes and the money made the difference," suggested Dorothy, whose feelings were not so decidedly aristocratic as those of the well-paid domestic. "That, at least, in the church, the rich and poor met together, and the Lord was the maker of them all."
"And so He is, Dorothy, for the Bible says so; but it is after a different fashion, as you will see, when you look at the pictures in the library of my lord's ancestors."
"Ancestors! what be they?"
"Why, Dorothy, are you so ignorant? Did you never hear father Rushmere talk of his ancestors? He comes of a good race. I have heard my lord say, that in the old times the Rushmeres owned this grand house, and nearly all the land in this and the neighbouring parish."