CHAPTER V.
WHITSUNTIDE.
The fund prospered. By dint of Miss Keeldar's example, the three Rectors' vigorous exertions, and the efficient though quiet aid of their spinster and spectacled lieutenants, Mary Ann Ainley and Margaret Hall, a handsome sum was raised; and this being judiciously managed, served for the present greatly to alleviate the distress of the unemployed poor. The neighbourhood seemed to grow calmer: for a fortnight past no cloth had been destroyed; no outrage on mill or mansion had been committed in the three parishes. Shirley was sanguine that the evil she wished to avert was almost escaped; that the threatened storm was passing over: with the approach of summer she felt certain that trade would improve—it always did; and then this weary war could not last for ever; peace must return one day: with peace what an impulse would be given to commerce!
Such was the usual tenor of her observations to her tenant, Gérard Moore, whenever she met him
