They had bought it and its furniture as a mere adjunct to a farm which they had chosen with more care, and when they inspected it for the first time their hearts sank somewhat within them.

Captain Rexford, with impressive sadness, remarked to his wife that there was a greater lack of varnish and upholstery and of traces of the turning lathe than he could have supposed possible in--"_furniture_." But his wife had bustled away before he had quite finished his speech.

Whatever she might feel, she at least expressed no discouragement.

Torture does not draw from a brave woman expressions of dismay.
That which gave both Mrs.Rexford and Sophia much perplexity in the first day or two of the new life was that the girl Eliza seemed to them to prove wholly incompetent.

She moved in a dazed and weary fashion which was quite inconsistent with the intelligence and capacity occasionally displayed in her remarks; and had they in the first three days been able to hear of another servant, Mrs.Rexford would have abruptly cancelled her agreement with Eliza.