"All's Well"; or, Alice's Victory. Emily Sarah Holt

o’ these days!”

      Her opinion would have been confirmed if she could have looked into the window at Briton’s Mead, as Mr. Benden’s house was called. For Edward Benden was already coming to that conclusion. He sat in his lonely parlour, without a voice to break the stillness, after an uncomfortable supper sent up in the absence of the mistress by a girl whom Alice had not yet fully trained, and who, sympathising wholly with her, was not concerned to increase the comfort of her master. At that time the mistress of a house, unless very exalted, was always her own housekeeper and head cook.

      Mr. Benden was not a man usually given to excess, but he drank deeply that evening, to get out of the only company he had, that of his own self-reproachful thoughts. He had acted in haste—spurred on, not deterred, by Tabitha’s bitter speeches; and he was now occupied in repenting considerably at leisure. He knew as well as any one could have told him, that he was an unpopular man in his neighbourhood, and that no one of his acquaintance would have done or suffered much for him, save that long-suffering wife who, by his own act, lay that night a prisoner in Canterbury Gaol. Even she did not love him—he had never given her room nor reason; but she would have done her duty by him, and he knew it.

      He looked up to where her portrait hung upon the wall, taken ten years ago, in the bloom of her youth. The eyes were turned towards him, and the lips were half parted in a smile.

      “Alice!” he said, as if the picture could have heard him. “Alice!”

      But the portrait smiled on, and gave no answer.

      “I’ll have you forth, Alice,” he murmured. “I’ll see to it the first thing to-morrow. Well, not to-morrow, neither; market-day at Cranbrook. I meant to take the bay horse to sell there. Do no harm, trow, to let her tarry a two-three days or a week. I mean you no harm, Alice; only to bring you down a little, and make you submissive. You’re a bit too much set on your own way, look you. I’ll go to Master Horden and Master Colepeper, and win them to move Dick o’ Dover to leave her go forth. It shall do her a power of good—just a few days. And I can ne’er put up with many suppers like this—I must have her forth. Should have thought o’ that sooner, trow. Ay, Alice—I’ll have you out!”

      Note. Most of the Scriptural quotations are taken from Cranmer’s Bible.