CHAPTER 23Mrs. Barton was a good deal troubled in her mind—angry too. She hadn’t been housekeeper at Deepside for thirty years without learning to hold her tongue and control her temper. Old Mr. Hathaway wasn’t one of the easiest. There had been troubles, like when his wife died, and when Mr. Roger the only son was killed out hunting. And there had been other things—things you didn’t talk about, though she supposed everyone would know. There wasn’t much people didn’t know in a village. But if Mr. Hathaway sat emptying the decanter till it was all he could do to get himself upstairs, no one had ever had word or look about it from her, poor lonely old gentleman. Then they’d had a thieving maid once—with good references too and wonderful smooth manners. Everything just a bit too good to be tr
