Dare's ready smile and handsome face had won her heart before he had been many days at Vandon, in spite of "his foreign ways," and he found himself constantly meeting her unexpectedly round corners, where she had been lying in wait for him, each time with a secret revelation to whisper respecting what she called the "goin's on." "You'll not tell on me, sir, but it's only right you should know as Mrs.
Smith" (the house-keeper, of whom Dare stood in mortal terror) "has them fine damask table-cloths out for the house-keeper's room; I see 'em myself; and everything going to rag and ruin in the linen closet!" Or, "Joseph has took in another flitch this very day, sir, as Mrs.Smith sent for, and the old flitch all cut to waste.

Do'e go and look at the flitches, sir, and the hams.

They're in the room over the stables.

And it's always butter, butter, butter, in the kitchen! Not a bit o' dripping used! There's not a pot of dripping in the larder, or so much as a skin of lard.

Where does it all go to?
You ask Mrs.Smith; and how she sleeps in her bed at night I don't know!" Dare listened, nodded, made his escape, and did nothing.