"Do not let us say anything more about that, aunt. Now you are going away, is there anything connected with the house you wish me to attend to? That I will do readily."
"Yes, there are several things," growled Miss Trevisa, "and, first of all, are you disposed to do anything, any common little kindness for the man whose bread you eat, whose roof covers you?"
"Yes, aunt."
"Very well, then. Captain Coppinger has his bowl of porridge every morning. I suppose he was accustomed to it before he came into these parts, and he cannot breakfast without it. He says that our Cornish maids cannot make porridge properly, and I have been accustomed to see to it. Either it is lumpy, or it is watery, or it is saltless. Will you see to that?"
"Yes, aunt, willingly."
"You ought to know how to make porridge, as you are more than half Scottish."
"I certainly can make it. Dear papa always liked it."
"Then you will attend to that. If you are too high and too great a lady to put your hand to it yourself, you can see that the cook manages it aright. There is a new girl in now, who is a fool."
"I will make it myself. I will do all I can do."
"Then take the keys. Now that I go, you must be mistress of the house. But for your folly, I might have been from here, and in my own house, or rather in that given me for my use, Othello Cottage. I was to have gone there directly after your marriage, I had furnished it, and made it comfortable, and then you took to your fantastic notions, and hung back, and refused to allow that you were married, and so I had to stick on here two months. Here, take the keys." Miss Trevisa almost flung them at her niece. "Now I have two thousand pounds of my own, and a house at S. Austell, it does not become me to be doing menial service. Take the keys. I will never have them back."
When Miss Trevisa was gone, and Judith was by herself at night, Jamie being asleep, she was able to think over calmly what her aunt had said. She concerned herself not the least, relative to the promise her aunt had made of leaving her two thousand pounds, were she sub-
