pear—take two pears, and come again in the morning.”

Mr Benden shook his head in a tragic manner, and let the pears alone.

“They are good pears,” said the Justice. “If you love no pears, put one in your pocket with my commendations to good Mistress Benden. How doth she?—well, I hope.”

“Were I able, Sir,” replied the visitor impressively, “to bear your commendations to good Mistress Benden, I were the happier man. But, alas! I am not at that pass.”

“What, come you hither to complain of your wife? Fie, Master Benden! Go you home and peace her, like a wise man as you are, and cast her half a suffering for some woman’s gear.”

Mr Benden might most truthfully have made reply that he had ere that evening bestowed on his wife not half a suffering only, but many whole ones: but he knew that the Justice meant half a sovereign, which was then pronounced exactly like suffering.

“Sir!” he said rather angrily, “it pleases you to reckon lightly of this matter: but what, I pray you, if you have to make account thereon with the Queen’s Grace’s laws, not to speak of holy Church? Sir, I give you to wit that my wife is an ill hussy, and an heretic belike, and lacketh a sharp pulling up—sharper than I can give her. She will not go to church, neither hear mass, nor hath she shriven her this many a day. You are set in office, methinks, to administer the laws, and have no right thus to shuffle off your duty by hours and minutes. I summon you to perform it in this case.”

Mr Justice Roberts was grave enough now. The half-lazy, half-jocose tone which he had hitherto worn was cast aside entirely, and the expression of his face grew almost stern. But the sternness was not all for the culprit thus arraigned before him; much of it was for the prosecutor. He was both shocked and disgusted with the course Mr Benden had taken: which course is not fiction, but fact.

“Master Benden,” said he, “I am two men—the Queen’s officer of her laws, and plain Anthony Roberts of Cranbrook. You speak this even but to Anthony Roberts: and as such, good Master, I would have you bethink you that if your wife be brought afore me as Justice, I must deal with her according to law. You know, moreover, that in case she shall admit her guilt, and refuse to amend, there is no course open to me save to commit her to prison: and you know, I suppose, what the end of that may be. Consider well if you are avised to go through with it. A man need count the cost of building an house ere he layeth in a load of bricks.”

“You are not wont, Master Justice, to be thus tender over women,” said Benden derisively. “Methinks ere now I have heard you to thank the saints you never wedded one.”

“And may do so yet again, Master Benden. I covet little to have a wife to look after.”

Like many men in his day, Mr Roberts looked upon a wife not as somebody who would look after him, in the sense of making him comfortable, but rather as one whom he would have the trouble of perpetually keeping out of all sorts of ways that were naughty and wrong.

“But that is not your case,” he continued in the same stern tone. “You set to-night—if you resolve to persevere therein—a ball rolling that may not tarry till it reach the fire. Are you avised thereon?”

“I am. Do your duty!” was the savage reply.

“Then do you yours,” said Mr Roberts coldly, “and bring Mrs Benden before me next sessions day. There is time to forethink you ere it come.”

Unconscious of the storm thus lowering over her, Alice Benden was sitting by little Christie’s sofa. There were then few playthings, and no children’s books, and other books were scarce and costly. Fifty volumes was considered a large library, and in few houses even of educated people were there more books than about half-a-dozen. For an invalid confined to bed or sofa, whether child or adult, there was little resource save needlework. Alice had come to bring her little niece a roll of canvas and some bright-coloured silks. Having so much time to spare, and so little variety of occupation, Christie was a more skilful embroideress than many older women. A new pattern was a great pleasure, and there were few pleasures open to the invalid and lonely child. Her sole home company was her father, for their one servant, Nell, was too busy, with the whole work of the house upon her hands, to do more for Christabel than necessity required; and Mr Hall, who was manager of one of the large factories in Cranbrook, was obliged to be away nearly the whole day. Other company—her Aunt Alice excepted—was rather a trial than a pleasure to Christabel. The young people were rough and noisy, even when they tried not to be so, and the child’s nerves were weak. Aunt Tabitha worried her to “rouse herself, and not be a burden on her poor father”; and how gladly would Christabel have done it! Uncle Thomas was also a harassing visitor, though in another way. He never knew what to say, when he had once asked how the invalid felt: he only sat and gazed at her and the window alternately, now and then, as though by a mental jerk, bringing out a few words.

“He causes me to feel so naughty, Aunt,” said Christie dolefully, “and I do want to be good. He sits and looks on me till I feel—I feel—Aunt Alice, I can’t find the words: as if all my brains would come out of my finger-ends, if he went on. And now and then he says a word or two—such as ‘Rain afore night, likely,’ or ‘Bought a drove of pigs yesterday,’ and I can only say, ‘Yes, uncle.’ I think ’tis hard for both of us, Aunt Alice, for we don’t know what to say one to the other. I can’t talk to him, and he can’t talk to me.”

Alice laughed, and then the tears almost rose in her eyes, as she softly smoothed Christie’s fair hair. She knew full well the sensation of intense, miserable nerve-strain, for which the little girl strove in vain to find words.

“’Tis hard to be patient, little Christie,” she said tenderly. “But God knoweth it, dear heart; and He is very patient with us.”

“O Aunt Alice, I know! And I am so sorry afterwards, when I should have been quiet and patient, and I have spoken crossly. People know not how hard it is, and how hard one tries: they only see when one gives way. They see not even how ashamed one is afterwards.”

“Truth, sweet heart; but the Lord seeth.”

“Aunt, think you the Lord Jesus ever felt thus?”

“He never felt sin, Christie; but I reckon He knew as well as any of us what it is to be wearied and troubled, when matters went not to His comfort. ‘The contradiction of sinners’ covereth a great deal.”

“I wonder,” said Christie plaintively, “if He felt as if it hurt Him when His brethren banged the doors! Friswith alway does when she comes; and it is like as if she struck me on the ears. And she never seems to hear it!”

“I cannot tell, sweeting, what He felt in the days of His flesh at Nazareth; but I can tell thee a better thing—that He doth feel now, and for thee. ‘I am poor and needy, but the Lord careth for me.’ Keep that in thine heart, little Christie; it shall be like a soft pillow for thy weary head.”

Alice rose to go home, and tied on her blue hood.

“O Aunt Alice, must you go? Couldn’t you tarry till Father comes?”

“I think not, my dear heart. Tell thy father I had need to haste away, but I will come again and see both him and thee to-morrow.”

To-morrow!

“Give him my loving commendations. Good-night, my child.” And Alice hurried away.