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Sarah and Deborah meanwhile were talking together as eagerly as any two women will who are very old friends and have not seen one another for a while. Sarah, although she did not at present declare it, was paying this visit because, above everything, she wished to discuss with Deborah the urgent matter of Judith. Deborah, on her side, was longing for the moment when she might begin about Humphrey's letter and his visit to the Pomfret Herries.

Sarah had the greatest opinion of Deborah's sound common sense. Judith's escape to Tom Gauntry's on the evening of her whipping had had most momentous consequences. David had ridden over to Stone Ends and brought her home. From then until now her nature was changed. She was obedient, docile, with flashes of fiery temper, strange impetuous affections; Sarah, whose nature was equable and always under control, could not understand her at all: she felt, too, that she was alone in this, for David had not the art of understanding temperaments. Francis could do what he liked with the child, but would not, so there you were....