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 cows, churn good butter, make immense cheeses; know how to sit hens and turkeys and rear chickens, to direct a field of labourers in an emergency, and estimate the value of sheep and calves?’

‘Yes; a farmer’s wife; yes, certainly. It would be desirable.’ Mr. Clare, the elder, had plainly never thought of these points before. ‘I was going to add,’ he said, ‘that for a pure and saintly woman you will not find one more to your true advantage, and certainly not more to your mother’s mind and my own, than your friend Mercy, whom you used to show a certain interest in. It is true that my neighbour Chant’s daughter has lately caught up the fashion of the younger clergy round abort us for decorating the Communion-table—altar, as I was shocked to hear her call it one day—with flowers and other stuff on festival occasions. But her father, who is quite as opposed to such flummery as I, says that can be cured. It is a mere girlish outbreak which, I am sure, will not be permanent.’

‘Yes, yes; Mercy is good and devout, I know. But, father, don’t you think that a young woman equally pure and virtuous as Miss Chant, but