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1
Solution Manual for Managing for Quality and
Performance Excellence 9th Edition by Evans
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CHAPTER 1
Introduction to Quality
Teaching Notes
In the first class session, we typically provide a few introductory remarks about the importance of
quality (see Power Point© slides for use in your lectures) and then often show a video. One of the
favorites is Pal’s Sudden Service, which is about a small fast food restaurant chain. A more recent
one about quick service restaurant operations is K&N Management. Students can easily grasp the
significance of quality in this familiar setting.
Chapter 1 Overview and Key Objective
The first chapter provides an overview of the importance of quality in a rapidly changing business
environment. Actually, that has become a cliché. Perhaps we should use the phrase: “a chaotic
business environment.” Students at both the undergraduate and graduate level are likely to be
taking this course as an elective, so you may have a tendency to assume that they are "self-
motivated" by simply being there. This is not necessarily the case. As business and industry
evolves, the terms “performance management” and “performance excellence” have begun to be
used as synonyms for older terms, such as TQM and total quality. Whatever the vocabulary, you
should try to "hook" your students on the excitement of quality and performance excellence by
using a variety of teaching methods and media.
This chapter also introduces the concept of quality in production and service systems and develops
the idea that quality is central to effective operation of these systems. Students should be
encouraged to develop an understanding of the fact that quality is not an "add-on" to organizational
processes, but that it is "a way of doing business."
Key objectives for Chapter 1 should include:

Introduction to Quality 2
• To emphasize that of the three important concepts of performance excellence –
productivity, cost, and quality – the most significant factor in determining the long-run
success or failure of any organization is quality.
• To focus on the multi-faceted definitions of quality. Definitions include transcendent
(judgmental) quality, product- and value-based quality, fitness for use (user-based),
conformance to specifications (manufacturing-based), and customer perspectives.
• To understand that the user-based perspective requires a definition of customers and
related terms. Thus, customers also include consumers, who ultimately use a product;
external customers, who may be intermediaries between the producer and the consumer;
and internal customers, who are the recipients of goods and services from suppliers
within the producing firm.
• To define specifications, which are key to the manufacturing perspective, as targets and
tolerances determined by designers of products and services.
• To review the evolution of quality from the 12th
Century B.C. Zou Dynasty in China,
through the Craftsmanship era in the 1700’s, through the Japanese post-World War II
challenge brought on by attention to quality and international competitiveness, to the
“Quality revolution” in the U.S. and elsewhere in the 1980’s through the early 21st
Century.
The “revolution” came about as a result of consumer pressures, technological change,
outmoded managerial thinking, and competitive pressures that changed the way that U.S.
and managers around the world viewed the role of quality.
• To introduce the concept of quality assurance -- providing consumers with goods and
services of appropriate quality, as a point of reference. Statistical quality control (SQC)
is the application of statistical methods for controlling quality. SQC was vital to military
production during World War II, and grew rapidly in application in the following years.
These definitions are often how the average person thinks of quality, but it requires pointing
out its limitations, as technical, rather than managerial, approaches.
• To provide a framework for understanding that the quality movement has influenced not
only product and service improvements, but the way in which organizations are
managed, leading to the concepts of Big Q – managing for quality in all organizational
processes as opposed to simply in manufacturing, referred to as Little Q. In addition,
total quality management (TQM), or simply total quality (TQ), developed as a total,
company-wide effort--through full involvement of the entire workforce and a focus on
continuous improvement – that companies use to achieve customer satisfaction. TQ
evolved from earlier concepts of total quality control and companywide quality control
as practiced in Japan. Additionally, these concepts are supported by the organizational
infrastructure that includes: customer relationship management, leadership and strategic

planning, human resources management, process management, and data and information
management, as well as a set of management practices and tools.
• To show how aligning and integrating quality principles into all fundamental business
activities underlies the concept of performance excellence, characterized by delivery of
ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, contributing to organizational
sustainability, improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities, and
organizational and personal learning.
• To explore the failures in quality initiatives, usually resulting from managerial mistakes,
and how the Six Sigma approach, supported by traditional lean tools from the Toyota
production system, is revitalizing the focus on quality in the 21st
century.
• To study the role that quality plays in each component of a manufacturing firm’s
production and business support systems and to show how they are linked together as a
system of processes to support organizational objectives.
• To develop the view of a production and service systems that focuses on lateral
relationships, as opposed to the traditional hierarchical view of organizations.
• To differentiate between production and service organizations, as well as their similarities,
and to highlight the differences in service organizations that must be addressed when
designing and implementing quality assurance systems.
• To show that quality in manufacturing and quality in services must be approached
differently in terms of employees' responsibilities and type and use of technology.
• To investigate the future of quality and reinforce the concept that managers must better
prepare and train employees in the philosophy and tools of quality management, and that
business leaders must also take responsibility and be held accountable for quality
outcomes.
• To provide quality definitions and terminology to be used throughout the text, including
term such as: specifications, customers and consumers, total quality, processes, continuous
improvement, learning cycles, infrastructure, practices, quality tools.
• To introduce the concept of competitive advantage, which denotes a firm’s ability to
achieve market superiority over its competitors. Quality is a key source of competitive
advantage, and studies have shown that quality is positively related to increased market
share and profitability.
• To point out that today, organizations are asking employees to take more responsibility
for acting as the point of contact between the organization and the customer, to be team

players, and to provide better customer service. Unless quality is internalized at the
personal level, it will never become rooted in the culture of an organization.
ANSWERS TO QUALITY IN PRACTICE KEY ISSUES
The Evolution of Quality at Xerox: From Leadership Through Quality to Lean Six Sigma
Although Xerox has fallen on hard times in the early 21st Century, that should not prevent you
from using their remarkable turn-around in quality in the 1990’s as a lesson in management
commitment and focus, which is still having an impact. Instructors may want to point out that
Xerox is a prime example of companies that have let “other business issues” blind them to the need
for a continued emphasis on quality. Despite thorough training of managers and workers at every
level, Xerox failed to maintain the organizational focus that had pulled them from the brink of
disaster. Eight years after the burst of the “dot-com bubble” began, and in the midst of the
prolonged economic downturn of 2008-12, it still remains to be seen whether the new management
team at Xerox can turn the company around, once again, in their rapidly changing technological
environment. However, it is not because the company and its current management are not trying.
1. In the 1980’s, after stumbling badly, Xerox made a remarkable turn-around in quality by
developing principles that were very similar to the core principles in this chapter. They
incorporated the core principles of: 1) a focus on customer satisfaction; 2) striving for
continuous improvement; and 3) encouraging the full involvement of the workforce by
their three objectives of Leadership Through Quality These could be summarized as:
• Quality improvement is everyone's job.
• Meeting the needs of internal and external customers is essential.
• Management and work processes that focus on continuous improvement and customer
requirements become a way of life.
The current Lean Six Sigma endeavor differs from earlier initiatives in that while it still
incorporates the “old” Leadership Through Quality approach, it places a new emphasis on:
1. Customer-focused employees
2. Participation and teamwork to attain speed and agility
3. Alignment of individual goals and plans with corporate objectives and results
4. Work processes that are customer-focused and with results built on quality
measurement
5. Communication and knowledge sharing for improvement
One key difference appears to be that the new approaches were not just “handed down”
by management, but required a new commitment and involvement of management. In
addition, there seems to be a new awareness that quality results require alignment with

organizational objectives attained at every level, quality processes based on measurement
are the key to customer satisfaction, and knowledge must be obtained from inside and
outside the organization and shared through communication in order to achieve
continuous improvement.
2. The lessons that are evident in this experience are that excellence in quality requires
excellence in management, that you “can’t take your eye off the ball” if you aspire to
high levels of quality, and that new competitive challenges require new approaches.
In Xerox’s first lesson, a repeat of what happened in the early 1980’s with different
players, there were a number of management problems that occurred at Xerox in the late
1990’s and early 2000’s that distracted them from what was happening with customers,
employees, and the competitive environment. As a result (the second lesson), not much
attention was paid to maintaining, much less improving, quality approaches that had been
so successful several years earlier. Results were spotty, and efforts were pointed toward
“making the bottom line look good.” The third lesson that became painfully clear was
that simply training employees, without management commitment and involvement no
longer worked.
A Business Week article on March 5, 2001 detailed the many woes of Xerox, especially
as it related to top management power struggles and failures to adapt to a rapidly
changing technological environment. If one accepts the premise that changing the
corporate culture is a necessity for TQ to take root in organizations, then it appears to
an outsider that their culture was never really changed, despite their quality successes
in the past. Their succession of CEO’s, from Kearns to Allaire to the recently fired
Thoman, made necessary changes to “fix” problems that were evident at the time, but
none of these senior leaders were successful in changing the culture of the copier
bureaucracy, “the Burox”, as they were called, inside the company. Also, as stated
earlier, it is much easier to build and sustain TQ when management has a clear vision,
a focus on customers and continuous improvement, strong measurement systems, a
cross-functional orientation, and high employee morale. Recently, that has not been the
case at Xerox. Both Allaire, who never made a “clean break” after retiring as CEO, and
Thoman, who was an “outsider” brought in from IBM, were accused of having “their
reach exceed their grasp” when it came to grand strategies that could not be successfully
carried out at an operating level. Can one place blame on its quality management
approaches? Probably not, since the TQ approach was highly successful in helping to
turn the company around in the 1980’s when it was properly implemented. But due to
recent strategic and management failures, it was not sustained in the rapid sweep of
technological change that Xerox was caught up in.
After some three years as Chairman and CEO, Ann Mulcahy, successfully made numerous
radical changes. More recently, her successor Ursula Burns, who is the first black woman
CEO of a Fortune 500 company, has set the company on a new path as a business process
services company, and away from being a hardware manufacturer and servicing firm. The

new quality initiatives, coupled with strategic cost-cutting and new product development,
contributed substantially to a new turnaround.
3. By saying that Quality is a race without a finish line, a slogan that Xerox management
has recently revived, there is a focus on two things: a) quality must not be just a
"program" that will fade out in a year or two; and b) to embrace the idea of continuous
improvement, people must assume that there will always be better ways found to do
things. For Xerox, this includes communication, becoming a learning organization, and
continuing to use benchmarking, a concept in which the company was a pioneer. Procter
and Gamble developed a continuous methods change approach many years earlier in
which it was pointed out that: "Perfection [in a process] should be no barrier to
improvement." In other words, employees should be encouraged to "tinker" with a
process that is running well in order to make it work even better! The significance to
Xerox or any organization is that if you continue to do things the same way, you will
soon be behind the competition, if they are making continuous improvements and you are
not.
Quality in Practice: Quality Practices in Modern China
1. There are obvious parallels between today’s China and post-World War II Japan. The
Chinese have used their abundant human resources to produce low-cost goods sold
around the world. They have borrowed (some would say “copied”) technology from the
West, because it was cheaper and faster than developing their own independently. The
differences are less evident, but have a very large impact. With a Communist government
and centralized state control of industries, infrastructure, and processes, bureaucratic and
political inefficiencies are common, innovation is slower, and correcting errors and
quality problems is not easy.
2. China has a significant opportunity to leverage the learning and take advantage of
progress made in quality in Japan and the West over the past half-century. Western
companies, as well as Japanese ones, are eager to develop partnerships and access to the
huge potential market of China’s tremendous population base. Thus, they are not
reluctant to share at least some of their quality expertise with their Chinese counterparts.
In addition, the information and communication explosion during the last decade has
made it much easier to obtain information about quality philosophy, tools, and best
practices, which can be put to use by managers and quality professionals in China.
ANSWERS TO REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. There have been several factors contributing to increased awareness of quality including
gaps between U.S. and international competitors’ quality levels, product recalls, and
massive quality failures. The realization of the superior quality of Japanese, German, and

other products from non-U.S. firms in the 1970’s, ‘80’s and up to the present (Then, in
initial quality levels; today, in long-term product reliability) was a “wake-up call” about
the lack of U.S. quality. In the last 20 years periodic quality issues have arisen, such as the
extensive product recalls by the Consumer Product Safety Commission in the early 1980's
and the Challenger space shuttle disasters in 1986 and the Columbia in 2003, the first of
which most students will not recall. Product recalls such as the ones for Daimler-Chrysler
mini-vans rear door-latch problems and the Firestone tire recall on Ford Explorer SUV’s
have kept the public's minds on quality throughout the 1990's and into the 21st Century.
Improvements in technology, reassessment of inadequate managerial philosophies, and the
economic impact of international competitiveness have also been important factors.
2. At Motorola, two key beliefs guide the culture of the firm: respect for people and
uncompromising integrity. Motorola was a pioneer in continual reduction of defects and
cycle times in all the company’s processes, from design, order entry, manufacturing, and
marketing, to administrative functions.
Customers report high levels of satisfaction, and the division demonstrates strong financial,
product quality, cycle time, and productivity performance. These results stem from
exceptional practices in managing human assets, sharing data and information with
employees, customers, and suppliers, and aligning all its business processes with key
organizational objectives.
MidwayUSA leverages the fact that many in the company’s workforce have a deep passion
for shooting, hunting, and outdoor sports, allowing them to use personal knowledge and
insight to better serve their customers. All salaried employees (including senior leaders)
spend one hour each week on the phone taking orders and answering customer requests.
Employees are selected for leadership development based on their support of the
company’s core value of “Customer-driven excellence” in addition to other performance-
based criteria. Through its Web site, MidwayUSA directly solicits customer input on
improving operations.
3. The six perspectives are: the transcendent, product, user, value, manufacturing, and
customer perspectives. The customer is the driving force for the production of goods and
services, and customers generally view quality from either the transcendent or the
product perspective. The transcendent, or judgmental, definition of quality holds that
quality is “both absolute and universally recognizable, a mark of uncompromising
standards and high achievement.” As such, it cannot be defined precisely—you just know
it when you see it. It is often loosely related to the features and characteristics of products
as featured by marketing efforts to promote product excellence in the minds of
consumers.
The product perspective implies that higher amounts of product attributes are equivalent
to higher quality, so designers often try to incorporate more features into products,
whether the customers want them or not.

The user perspective of quality is meaningful to people who work in marketing. This
leads to a user-based definition of quality – fitness for intended use, or how well the
product performs its intended function. The manufacturer must translate customer
requirements into detailed product and process specifications. Making this translation is
the role of research and development, product design, and engineering. Product
specifications might address such attributes as size, form, finish, taste, dimensions,
tolerances, materials, operational characteristics, and safety features. Process
specifications indicate the types of equipment, tools, and facilities to be used in
production.
Product designers must balance performance and cost to meet financial and marketing
objectives; thus, the value perspective of quality is most useful at this stage. The value
perspective looks for the relationship of product benefits to price. From this perspective,
a quality product is one that provides similar benefits as competing products a lower
price, or one that offers greater benefits at a comparable price.
Organizations want consistency in their goods and services. For production workers,
quality is defined by the manufacturing perspective. Having standards for goods and
services and meeting these standards leads to the definition of quality as: conformance to
specifications. Specifications are meaningless, however, if they do not reflect attributes
that are deemed important to the consumer.
Throughout the value chain, each function is an internal customer of others, and the firm
itself may be an external customer or supplier to other firms. Thus, the customer
perspective provides the basis for coordinating the entire value chain.
4. Consumers are the final purchasers of a product or service. In the case of fast-food
restaurants, such as Chipotle, they are the everyday people who buy and consume the
restaurant's ready-made tacos, barritos, etc. External customers are companies within a
"chain of customers," a chain of many firms who work together to produce the final
consumer product. A firm, such as Wal-Mart, that relies on the product or service of another
company to produce its own product or service is an external customer. For example,
Chipotle purchases meats, vegetables and other ingredients from outside suppliers. So
Chipotle restaurants are therefore external customers of the separate manufacturing or
processing companies who supply them. Internal customers are people or divisions within
the company who receive products or services from suppliers within the company. In Wal-
Mart stores, the store employees who unload the Wal-Mart trucks on the receiving dock
are internal customers to the employees who drive the trucks and make the deliveries.
5. Webster's definition of quality is vague and simplistic. "(Quality is) that which makes
something what it is; characteristic element." The ANSI/ASQC A3-1978, Quality
Systems Terminology defines quality as “the totality of features and characteristics of a
product or service that bears on its ability to satisfy given needs.” This definition draws

heavily on the product and user definitions and is driven by the need to create satisfied
customers. By the end of the 1980s, many organizations had begun using a simpler, yet
powerful, customer definition of quality that remains popular today: Quality is meeting or
exceeding customer expectations.
Quality can be a confusing concept, partly because people view quality subjectively and
in relation to differing criteria based on their individual roles in the production-marketing
value chain. In addition, the meaning of quality continues to evolve as the quality
profession grows and matures. No single definition is adequate because customer needs
are constantly changing and because quality is "situational" -- e.g. a good design for one
purpose, and in the eyes of one set of customers, may represent a poor design for another
use or another set of customers. Reliance on a single definition of quality is frequently a
source of problems.
6. Evidence of the search for quality dates back to ancient Egypt, as indicated in the precision
and uniformity of methods used in the construction of the pyramids. The craftsperson of
the Middle Ages took special care to ensure quality in his/her product, a necessary step
since he/she dealt directly with the customer. In the late 18th Century, Eli Whitney helped
trigger the Industrial Revolution with his development of interchangeable machine parts.
The Industrial Revolution itself was a key turning point, since it made quality assurance a
critical component of the production process. However, quality was determined only after
the products were finished, rather than during the manufacturing process, so as volume
increased and costs decreased, craftsmanship decreased.
Quality control techniques were further developed in the early 20th Century, when methods
of inspection to improve and maintain quality were gradually separated from production
techniques. The significant difference between early and late 20th Century quality
approaches was the development of the concept of “total quality” as applied to every area
of an organization, not just the production and/or operations functions. In the early 21st
Century, the emphasis has been placed on bringing quality improvement to the “bottom
line” results by alignment of quality objectives with organizational goals.
7. Definitions of the following terms are:
a. quality assurance - any planned and systematic activity directed toward providing
consumers with products (goods and services) of appropriate quality, along with the
confidence that products meet consumers’ requirements.
b. total quality – the concept of total quality includes the three fundamental principles of:
a focus on customers; participation and teamwork; and continuous improvement and
learning. This requires that organizations strive to understand the needs and wants of both
intermediate customers and final consumers, to seek input of ideas and solutions to
problems from employees at every level, and to continuously look for, test, implement,

and evaluate new ways to perform organizational processes, better.
c. performance excellence - an integrated approach to organizational performance
management that results in:
1. Delivery of ever-improving value to customers and stakeholders, contributing to
organizational sustainability,
2. Improvement of overall organizational effectiveness and capabilities, and
3. Organizational and personal learning.
d. competitive advantage – a concept that denotes a firm’s ability to achieve market
superiority. A strong competitive advantage provides customer value, leads to financial
success and business sustainability, and is difficult for competitors to copy. High quality
is itself an important source of competitive advantage.
8. Quality concerns of each major function within a manufacturing system vary. Thus, each
major function contributes to total quality in various ways, as follows:
Marketing and Sales - Effective market research and solicitation of customer feedback
are necessary for developing quality products.
Product Design and Process Engineering – Here, designers and technicians must make
sure products are not over- or under-engineered. Over-engineering results in ineffective
use of a firm’s resources and products. Under-engineered products poor process designs
result in lower quality as well.
Purchasing and Receiving - The purchasing department must ensure that purchased parts
meet the quality requirements specified by product design and engineering. Receiving
must ensure that the purchased items that are delivered are of the quality that was
contracted for by purchasing and that defective parts are not received.
Production Planning and Scheduling - The correct material, tools, and equipment must be
available at the proper time and in the proper places to maintain a smooth flow of
production.
Manufacturing and Assembly - Quality must be built into a product; it cannot be
inspected into it. Proper control of labor, materials, and equipment is necessary to
achieve high quality.
Tool Engineering--Tools used in manufacturing and inspection must be designed and
maintained for continual production of a quality product. Tool performance should be
consistently monitored so that worn or defective tools can be identified and replaced.

Industrial Engineering and Process Design – Team members from these areas must work
with product design engineers to develop realistic specifications of quality. In addition,
they must select appropriate technology, equipment, and work methods that will produce
quality products.
Finished Goods Inspection and Tests - If quality is built into the product properly and
rigorously, inspection should be unnecessary. However, in a less than perfect system,
some inspection based on random sampling, or 100 percent inspection of critical
components, is still necessary to ensure that no defective items reach the customer.
Packaging, Shipping, and Warehousing - Logistical activities take place in these locations
which are designed to protect quality after goods are produced.
Installation and Service – These personnel must ensure that users understand the product
and have adequate instructions for proper installation and operation.
9. Service is defined as: "any primary or complementary activity that does not directly
produce a physical product -- that is, the nongoods part of the transaction between buyer
(customer) and seller (provider).” Service firms are organizations in industries and
sectors including: hotels and lodging places, and establishments providing personal,
business, repair, and amusement services; health, legal, engineering and other
professional services; membership organizations. Real estate, financial services, retailers,
transportation, and public utility organizations are generally considered service firms.
Basically, they include all nonmanufacturing organizations except such industries as
agriculture, mining, and construction.
Quality in services is important in today’s business environment because poor service
often leads to lost customers (up to 35% per year) and therefore lost income. Retaining
customers can mean a profit increase because it is more cost effective to retain them than
to acquire new customers. Companies with long-time customers can financially
outperform competitors with higher customer turnover even when their unit costs are
higher and their market share is smaller. Quality has moved beyond technical issues such
as reliability, inspection, and quality control in manufacturing, because of changes in the
economy and in society. Some of these concerns center on the increasing focus of
businesses on service and knowledge creation and management.
10. Differences between manufacturing and service organizations are significant, yet both
types have activities that fall into manufacturing and service categories. The contrasts
between service and manufacturing quality include:
• Customer needs and performance standards are difficult to quantify in services.
• The production of services often requires a high degree of customization.
• The output of many services is intangible, unlike manufactured goods.
• Services are produced and consumed simultaneously.

• Customers must often be involved and present during the performance of the service
process.
• Services are more labor intensive, where manufacturing is more capital intensive.
• Many service organizations handle large numbers of transactions.
11. Employees need information technology as a tool for providing quality service in today’s
fast-moving business environment. Information technology is essential in modern service
organizations because of the high volumes of information they must process and because
customers demand service at ever-increasing speeds. Intelligent use of information
technology improves quality and productivity, and also leads to competitive advantage,
especially when technology is used to better serve the customer. At the Ritz-Carlton
Hotel Company, L.L.C., a corporate-wide database is used to record customer
preferences, previous difficulties, personal interests, and preferred credit cards of each of
more than 800,000 customers. Thus, front-desk employees can determine that a customer
needs a non-smoking room, prefers non-scented soap, and often travels with a small child
who will need a crib.
12. Business support activities must aid in quality production in their own separate ways, but
still remain aligned with the organizations purpose, objectives, goals, and plans. Support
activities help to provide for specialized handling of non-core processes. Thus, team
members in the core activities can focus on quality issues in their own areas. Key business
support activities play a role in sustaining quality as follows:
- Financial studies can help expose the costs of poor quality and ways of reducing it.
Accounting data are useful for identifying areas for quality improvement and tracking the
progress of quality improvement. Financial and accounting personnel can also apply
quality improvement techniques to improve their own operations.
- Human Resource Management--Human resource managers must ensure that employees
have the proper skills, training, and motivation to do quality work, and that they are
recognized and rewarded for such. They must also be given the authority and responsibility
to make critical quality decisions when necessary.
- Quality Assurance specialists in “quality assurance departments” assist managers by
performing tasks such as statistical tests or data analyses, special statistical studies and
analyses, and may be assigned to work with any of the manufacturing or business support
functions. It must be remembered that a firm’s quality assurance department cannot
guarantee quality. Its proper role is to provide guidance and support for the firm’s total
effort toward this goal.
- Legal Services personnel in the legal department attempt to guarantee that the firm
complies with laws and regulations regarding such things as product labeling, packaging,
safety, and transportation; design and word warranties properly; ensure that the firm
satisfies its contractual requirements; and develop proper procedures and documentation

for use in the event of liability claims against it. The rapid increase in liability suits has
made legal services an important aspect of quality assurance.
13. A firm's competitive advantage lies in its ability to achieve market superiority. It is a)
driven by customer wants and needs; b) makes a significant contribution to the success of
the organization; c) matches the organization’s unique resources with opportunities in the
environment; d) is durable, lasting, and difficult for competitors to copy; e) provides a basis
for further improvement; and f) provides direction and motivation to the entire
organization. Quality supports a firm's competitive advantage by providing for more
efficient use of resources and production methods within the company, thus producing
products or services that are superior to those of competitors.
14. The late Philip Crosby made the point that "quality is free" because he wanted to emphasize
the savings and benefits that have since been more fully (see answer to question 15, below)
documented, in terms of design and conformance quality. Money saved by avoiding scrap,
rework, and a poor reputation for quality shows up in the "bottom line" as higher profits.
Although it costs money to start and maintain a quality process, it is a proven fact that
quality "pays" in the long run.
15. A product's value in the marketplace, and hence, its profitability, is influenced by the
quality of its design. Improvements in performance, features, and reliability within the
product will differentiate it from its competitors, improving the firm's quality reputation
and the perceived value of the product, and allowing the company to command higher
prices and achieve a greater market share. This leads to increased revenues, which offset
the costs of improving the design. Improved conformance to quality standards in
production also saves rework, scrap, and warranty expenses, thus decreasing
manufacturing and service costs.
16. The evidence to counter the claim that “quality does not pay” is mounting. For example,
the Department of Commerce studies of Malcolm Baldrige Award winners through 2002
showed that an investment in common stock of the winners would have produced a 3.8 to
1 advantage over a similar investment in the S&P 500. However, in 2003, for the first time
since the Baldrige Index was established, the S&P outperformed the index, primarily
because of the depressed stocks of a number of high-tech companies that have won the
Baldrige. The Hendricks and Singhal study (see text reference) of 600 publicly traded firms
that have won quality awards showed significant differences in performance measures
versus their control groups. Quality-focused companies have frequently attained
outstanding operational and financial results. These have been extensively illustrated in
this and succeeding chapters in the quality profiles of such firms as Pal’s Sudden Service,
Robert W. Monfort College of Business, Texas Nameplate, Boeing Airlift and Tanker,
Bronson Methodist Hospital, etc. In addition, various studies done by associations and
government agencies such as the GAO study, Commerce Department studies, and the
documentation required from Baldrige Award applicants and winners all provide evidence
that quality delivery and improvement "pay".

17. Personal quality is an often-neglected area, which, if emphasized, can have a significant
impact on individuals and organizations. Simply by recording defects in specific
categories, the number of defects can often be reduced. In addition, this approach can make
individual employees in an organization aware of how the quality process works, give them
an appreciation of the power of quality tools, and help them realize how their own quality
actions may impact the firm.
ANSWERS TO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. Students should have numerous personal examples of how good and poor quality has
affected them. Often, they are harder pressed to come up with an example of good quality
than one of poor quality. For example, one of the authors experienced outstanding quality
when he went to a computer store and selected a printer. After completing the paperwork
and payment part of the transaction, the store employee went to the back, retrieved a sealed
box containing the printer model that was purchased, cut the tape on the box, attached the
printer to a computer with the correct cord which he picked from many on the rack, ran
through a print test, repacked the printer, retaped the box, carried the printer to the author’s
car, and placed it carefully in the trunk!
2. Quality has been a topic of national interest in the U.S. as well as to countries around the
globe since the discovery in the early 1970’s that many goods and services produced in
certain quality-focused countries, or by specific companies, have higher quality standards
in production and better track records with consumers. In the past, American negligence of
quality resulted in many consumers preferring foreign-made products. This preference
increased business for foreign competitors, allowing them to establish an American
business presence, increase their market share, and thus decrease sales of American-made
products, domestically, as well as internationally. This has continued into the present, with
China’s dominant role in producing consumer goods for the world market. In the long run,
this can cause the economic health of the nation to suffer. However, more and more U.S.
businesses have recognized that they are vulnerable to both foreign and domestic
competition if they don't have competitive quality levels, so they are taking steps to counter
the competitive threat. There are even businesses which are “pulling back” from foreign
outsourcing and producing components and products in the U.S. in order to regain control
over quality and eliminate issues due to extended supply chains.
3. In the Business Week (July 9 & 16, 2007, p. 16) article, the reader said: “Americans have
switched from Detroit Big Three vehicles to Honda and Toyota vehicles not for visual
design features but for durability, reliability, good fuel consumption, and low full cost of
operation. Detroit needs to offer five-passenger, 35-mile-per-gallon vehicles with
100,000 mile bumper-to-bumper warranties over 10 years of ownership to cause satisfied
Honda and Toyota buyers to switch.” The definitions of quality implied in these
comments emphasize a product-based and “fitness for use” perspective, based on value.

The writer may also be implying that the after-market service quality of the traditional
Detroit auto companies is not competitive with such firms as Toyota or Honda. While the
reader is probably “on the mark” about the needs of a large segment of the automobile
buyers market, his/her comments do not necessarily cover the “fitness for use” categories
of buyers who are looking for cars with primary characteristics of safety or those whose
purchase decisions are driven by design/luxury and aesthetic values.
4. Answers may vary. For example, if a student chooses an iPad, he or she may point to its
transcendent quality. The student might say, "I just like the 'look and feel' of the IPad.
When you look at it, it's obvious that it's a quality product." In speaking of product-and
value-based quality, the student might point out that the iPad has a lot of features for the
price. To judge fitness for use, the student may say, "I want to take pictures, notes in
class, and converse with my boyfriedn, who Is studying abroad. I need the functions and
apps that the iPad has, and has made easy to use." Finally, when judging conformance to
specifications, the student may look the product up online, and find out if claims for
battery life hold true for current users.
5. As in question 4, students might choose any one of dozens of products or services to
illustrate. Fitness for intended use should answer questions such as: Does the product
perform as advertised? Is the product user-friendly, and affordable for both consumers
AND the manufacturer? Is the product durable? How does the product stack up against
other competitive products, which may have different features?
For example, they might choose to discuss purchase of a used car to drive to school and
work. The list of fitness for use criteria might include initial price, cost to operate and
maintain, ease of driving, power, aesthetics. If a comparison is made between a used Ford
Focus and a Honda Civic, the Focus might be inexpensive to purchase, moderately
economical to own, easy to drive, low-powered, not very comfortable, and not very
attractive in design. The Civic (assuming comparable age and mileage) might be more
expensive to purchase, more economical to operate than the Ford, easy to drive,
moderately powered, comfortable, and have a more attractive design than the Focus.
In applying these definitions to a service (e.g. a cellular phone service provider), students
should ask questions such as: Is the service affordable? Cost-efficient? Are employees
sensitive to customer needs? Does it have any “hidden” requirements or misleading
claims? How does this service compare with, a competitor’s phone service in price,
features, and reliability? How often does the service incur “dropped” calls? What about
geographic area coverage?
6. The Ford executive’s statement that: “You can’t have great value unless you have great
quality” ‘rings true’ because quality of design and quality of conformance go hand-in-
hand. However, the marketing-oriented concept of “fitness for intended use” makes it
difficult to arrive at a universal definition of either “great value” or “great quality.”

Exploring the Variety of Random
Documents with Different Content

recommend you as parlour-maid to Miss Bowdler, for her John
Thomas to flirt with in the pantry? This is not all. After everything
that Mr. Herring has done for you, you cannot refuse him without
being guilty of black ingratitude. Now, what do you say? There
seems to me no option as to what your choice should be. But some
persons do not know on which side their bread is buttered. Are you
prepared to go into service? Shall I write you a character to Sophy
Bowdler? clean, obliging, and steady; understands glass and china.
There is really no alternative. Remember, also, that my mother and I
depend on your election likewise. Reject Mr. Herring, and when you
go to Miss Bowdler as parlour-maid, my mother becomes cook, and
I, barmaid at an inn.'
Mirelle rose; she did not speak, but left the room with tottering
feet, and her eyes so full that, to find her way, she felt about her
with trembling hands. When she was gone, Orange laughed.
'Now,' said she, 'the next thing to be done is to bring that other
fool here.' Then she wrote a note to Herring, requesting him to
come to Launceston, as her mother and she wished to consult him
on important business. She added in a postscript, 'Mirelle will be
most happy to see you.'
CHAPTER XXXVIII.
A VIRGIN MARTYR.
In the privacy of her own room, by night, in the little garden house,
her favourite refuge by day, Mirelle considered what Orange had said

to her. She was hurt and offended by the manner in which Orange
had spoken, without quite understanding why. Her refined nature
winced before the rough touch of one coarse as Orange, not only
because the touch was rude, but because it sullied.
Mirelle believed that Orange was her friend, a rude friend, but
sincere. What had she done to convert her into an enemy? She was
not a friend to whom she could open her heart, and she had no
desire to receive the outpourings of that of Orange. They were
friends so far as this went, that each wished well to the other, and
would do her utmost to promote each other's happiness.
Orange was the interpreter of the world's voice to Mirelle, the
guide through its mazes. That voice was odious to her, nevertheless
she must hear it. Its ways were distasteful, nevertheless she must
tread them. She knew nothing of the world, except what she had
been taught in the convent. She believed it to be wicked and
ungodly. The virgin martyrs had been cast to wild beasts, some had
been devoured by leopards, others hugged by bears. The world was
an arena in which she was exposed, and Orange the rough but
kindly executioner who offered her a choice of martyrdom. An angel,
a captain of the heavenly militia, with eyes blue as the skies of
paradise, had been sent to stand by, and guard many a virgin; but
she, Mirelle, must endure her agony undefended, and see the angel
stand by one who seemed rude and dauntless enough to fight the
battle unaided.
King Alphonso X. of Castile said that, if he had been consulted
at the creation of the universe, he would have made it much better;
the sisters of the Sacred Heart had intimated as much in their
instructions. In the first place they would have made a world without

men, and that world would have remained a paradise. Men are the
cankers that corrode the roses, the thorns that strangle the lilies in
the garden of the Church, the moths that fret the garments of the
saints, the incarnation of the destructive principle.
Mirelle remembered how her mother had suffered through
union with Mr. Strange. She thought of Mr. Trampleasure, of
Sampson—she really knew very few men, and those she knew were
not of the best type. There was the Captain, indeed, but he was
unattainable, and Herring was at least inoffensive and well-meaning.
If she must be thrown to beasts, let her be cast to such a gentle
beast as this. Hereafter, only, will there be no marrying nor giving in
marriage, and women will be at peace; there, into that blessed
country, the men, if admitted at all, will be like priests, wear
petticoats and be shaven; above all, will be in such a minority that
they will be obliged to keep their distance and adopt a submissive
manner. Mirelle had a good deal of natural shrewdness, but no
experience of life. Brought up in a convent, the only world she knew
was the little world within four walls, in which the wildest hurricane
that raged was occasioned by a junior appropriating the chair
properly belonging to a senior, and the fiercest jealousies blazed
when a father director addressed four words to Sister Magdalen of S.
Paul, and only three to Sister Rose of the Cross. When she had gone
out, it was on visits to her mother, and there she had met very
artificial old gentlemen, and still more artificial old ladies, persons
who looked like pictures in illustrated story-books, and talked like the
people she read of in the same books. She supposed that her board
and education were paid for at the Sacré Coeur. She supposed so,
she took it for granted. She considered it probable that those pupils

who could afford, paid, and those who could not afford, were
received gratuitously. The sisters never mentioned such matters, her
mother never alluded to them, and Mirelle had scarce accorded such
sordid cares a passing thought. Bread and instruction came to her as
food and light to the birds; the birds take what is sent, and do not
trouble their feathery heads about the how and whence. Now she
was driven to consider how she might live, and whether it was right
for her to subsist on alms, and those the alms of a gentleman who
was no relation, and how, if these means were withdrawn or
rejected, she was to live at all.
After much thought, little sleep, and many tears, she decided
that she would accept John Herring.
She had made up her mind. Now, she must obtain command of
herself to go through the approaching ordeal with dignity.
As Orange had anticipated, her letter brought Herring to
Launceston. He had gone to Welltown, his house in Cornwall on the
coast, to look after his business there. He had let the farm, but he
had a slate-quarry in the cliffs overhanging the sea, and he liked to
keep an eye on it. This slate-quarry had been worked in a desultory
manner, chiefly to supply local requirements, but Herring's ideas had
expanded since he had seen the rise and fall of Ophir, and since he
had embarked in silver lead, and he saw his way to an extension of
the business. He knew that Bristol was a port where he could
dispose of any amount of slate, if he were able to convey it thither.
Below Welltown the cliffs rose sheer from the beach; that beach was
a thin strip of sand, only to be reached by a dangerous path cut in
the face of the rock. Welltown cove was to some extent sheltered
from the roll of the Atlantic by a reef from Willapark, as a headland

was called, which started out of the mainland into the ocean, and
was gnawed into on both sides by the waves, threatening to convert
it into an island.
Herring had a scheme in his head; he thought to construct a
breakwater on a continuation of the reef. Then he would be able to
bring boats under the face of his slate-quarries, and lower the
roofing stone upon their decks. The idea had not occurred to him
before, because he had been poor and unable to command a few
thousand pounds. But now he had Mirelle's diamonds to draw upon.
He could invest her capital in his own slate-quarry as well as in
Upaver lead mine, and benefit himself as well as Mr. Battishill. He
would look after both investments himself. He would hold both the
slate and the lead in his own hands. Mirelle's money would not only
be safe, but would bring in rich dividends. Was he justified in acting
thus—in speculating with the fortune of another without her
knowledge and consent? He asked himself this question, and
answered it in the affirmative. Without his seeking, Providence had
thrust on him the charge of Mirelle's fortune, and he must do the
best he could with it. Her father had done what he thought best,
and every penny that had been intrusted to her guardians had been
lost. Then Providence had overruled matters so as to constitute him
her guardian. He would act justly by her. He was not self-seeking. It
was true that the development of the Welltown slate-quarry would
improve his own fortune, but this thought influenced him far less
than consideration how best to dispose of Mirelle's money. He would
sink her diamonds in his slate, not because it was his slate, but
because he knew the security and value of the investment. He was
working for her, not for himself, to increase her fortune, not his own,

to insure her a future, not himself. Thus it was for Mirelle that he
was erecting machinery at Upaver and planning a breakwater at
Welltown. In the midst of his schemes he received the letter of
Orange, and the postscript made his heart leap. He had been too
humble-minded to hope. Mirelle stood aloof from him, high above
his sphere. She was to him the ideal of pure, beautiful, and saintly
maidenhood, to be dreamed of, not aspired to, to be venerated, not
sought. She had of late received him with more kindliness than
heretofore, had put away her early disdain, and had treated him as
an equal. There had transpired through face and manner something
even of appeal to him. Was it possible that she had begun to regard
him with liking, perhaps even with love? He was so modest in his
estimation of himself that he blushed at the thought—the audacious
thought—that this was possible.
Herring posted to Launceston, and went at once to Dolbeare.
Mirelle was in the little garden house as he passed. She saw him,
and knew that the crisis in her life was come. He was admitted to
Dolbeare, and sat with Mrs. Trampleasure and Orange for half an
hour. The latter had discovered some important business requiring
advice, and this was discussed; yet Herring saw plainly enough that
this was not of sufficient importance to have made Orange summon
him. Mr. Flamank could have advised her equally well. There was
something behind. What that was Orange let him understand.
'And now,' said she, 'we must detain you no longer. Mirelle is in
the summer-house. She likes to be alone, dear girl, and she wants to
see you. You slipped away, on the occasion of our return hither,
without awaiting her thanks. She has been troubled at this; she
knows she owes you some return. Go and see her; she is expecting

you, and angry with us for keeping you from her so long over our
own poor affairs.'
Herring coloured. Orange had not a delicate way of putting
things. He knew that Mirelle had not asked Orange to act as
intermediary between them, yet this was what the words and
manner of Orange implied.
He bowed and withdrew.
Mirelle was awaiting him, She had been given time to school
herself for the trial. Twilight had set in, and but for the fire that
glowed on the hearth it would have been dark in the little room. The
fire was of peat, without flame, colouring the whole room very red.
Mirelle rose from her seat and stepped forward to meet Herring.
He looked her in the face. She was very pale; the colour had
deserted even her lips, but the light of the burning turf disguised her
death-like whiteness. As he took her hand he felt how cold it was; it
trembled, and was timorously withdrawn the moment it had touched
his fingers. His heart was beating tumultuously. Hers seemed scarce
to pulsate; it was iced by her great fear and misery, and the strong
compulsion she exerted to keep herself calm.
'I am glad to see you, Mr. Herring,' she said. She spoke first,
and she spoke, as on a former occasion, like one repeating a lesson
learned by heart. 'I was told that you were coming, and I have
prepared myself to speak to you, and say what has to be said. You
have been good to me, very good. You have done more for me than
I had any right to expect. I have no claim on you, save the claim
which appeals to every Christian heart, the claim of the friendless
and helpless. That is a great claim, I have been taught, the greatest
and most sacred of all. But the world does not recognise it; it does

not allow you permission to pour on me so many benefits. You have
bought everything the house contains with your own money—for
me. You have taken the lease of the house, and paid the rent out of
your own purse—for me. You have undertaken to find me an income
on which I can live in comfort; you rob yourself—for me.'
She paused a moment.
A conflict woke up in the mind of John Herring. Should he tell
her all? Should he say that this was not true—he had used her
money, not his own? If at that moment he had done so, that event
which was to trouble and darken both their futures would not have
occurred. Herring was young; he was without strength of character
to decide in a moment what to do. He let the occasion slip. He would
wait; the revelation could be made later. He did not understand the
supreme importance of the moment. He did not realise to what
Mirelle's words led.
'Countess,' he said——
'No,' she interrupted hastily, 'do not speak. You must let me say
what I want. Il me faut me décharger le coeur. If I had been a nun
at the head of an orphanage, I would have said, Give all, and God
on high will repay you. Give; no one will deny you the right, and I
will accept with joy. I will be your almoner to the little ones of Christ.
But, alas! it is not so. I can spend what you provide only on myself,
and I do not find that this is right. In the world is one fashion, in
religion is another fashion. You see well yourself it cannot be.'
'Countess, will you allow me to explain?'
'No; I need no explanation. One only question I ask, for there is
one thing I desire greatly to know. That neck-chain and that coronet
of diamonds, have you sold them?'

'No, I have them yet. You intrusted them to me.'
'They are false. Do you know the brooch you sent me for
Orange was all of false stones—of paste? I doubt not the rest of the
set is the same. Did you know this?'
'Certainly not. I have not examined and proved the stones. I
had no suspicion that they were not genuine.'
'My father sent the set as a present to my mother,' said Mirelle,
'and they were of paste.'
Herring was surprised.
'This cannot be, Countess; your father was a diamond
merchant, and knew perfectly the false from the true. He could not
have sent your mother what was worthless. The stones must have
been changed later.'
'They were in my mother's keeping,' said Mirelle.
That was answer enough. Her father might be guilty of a mean
act; her mother, never.
Herring had his own opinion, but he had the prudence not to
express it.
'But enough about this,' Mirelle went on. 'I only asked for this
reason. If you had sold my stones, supposing them to be real, and
had used them to relieve me and the Trampleasures in the moment
of our need, when we had not a house to cover our heads, I should
have been very, very thankful.'
She said this with an involuntary sigh, and with such an intense
expression of earnestness that Herring caught the words up, and
said eagerly:—
'Do you mean this? Do you mean that you would have thanked
me if I had sold your diamonds and used the proceeds to relieve

your necessities?'
'Yes, I do mean this.'
'Why did you not ask me to do this?'
'Because I supposed the stones were paste, and worthless.'
'Tell me, dear Countess Mirelle, if you had confided diamonds to
me, knowing them to be diamonds, you would not be angry with me
for selling them for this very purpose—to provide you with the
means of living yourself, and of returning the kindness shown you by
Mrs. Trampleasure and her daughter?'
'I would go down on my knees to thank you. I would be full of
gratitude to you.'
He breathed freely; he had received his absolution. He had been
justified in acting as he had done; Mirelle had approved of his
conduct with her own lips. He had carried out her wishes. It was
unnecessary for him to tell her all, now that he was certain that he
acted as she would have him act.
But he did not read her heart. He did not understand the real
significance of her words. She would indeed have been thankful to
know that she had received her own money, so as to be free from all
obligations to him—so as not to be forced to take the step the
thought of which killed the life out of her heart. That hope was gone
—a poor hope, but still a hope. Nothing remained for her but the
surrender; she must become a sacrifice.
'It was not so,' she went on sadly, 'I knew it was not so, for you
would not have parted with my mother's set of stones without
consulting me. No, Mr. Herring, I have not the poor pride of knowing
I am my own mistress, and independent of every one. You have

been to me a generous friend and a guardian when I needed
assistance and protection.'
'Dear Countess Mirelle, I am ready still to act as your friend,
your guardian, and your protector.'
'I know it, Mr. Herring, and I frankly accept your offer. I am
willing that you should continue such for the rest of my life.'
'Countess!' Herring's voice shook; 'how happy, how proud you
make me!'
'Let me speak,' she said. Then her heart failed her. She went to
the fire, and rested her hands on the mantelpiece, folded as in
prayer, and leaned her brow for a moment on them. The red glow of
the fire smote upwards and illumined and warmed the face. She was
praying. Her strength was ebbing away; the dreaded moment had
come. 'I holy and innocent Agnes, pure lamb! Thou who didst bow
thy neck to the sword, intercede for me! O Cicely, thou whose heart
was filled with heavenly music, making thee deaf to the voice of an
earthly bridegroom, pray for me! O Dorothy, thou who didst pine for
the lilies and roses of Paradise, plead for me!'
She raised her white brow from its momentary resting-place.
The strength had come. The moment of agony had arrived, and she
was nerved to pass through.
'Mr. Herring,' she spoke slowly, leisurely, 'I have no right to
accept your offer, unless you confer on me the right—the only right
——'
She could speak no more. Her white, quivering face, her sunken
eyes, and uplifted hands that shook as with a palsy, showed her
powerlessness to proceed.

Herring took a step forward. She drew back, shrinking before
him as perhaps the martyr shrinks before the executioner.
'Stand there, I pray—oh, do not come nearer!' she pleaded, with
pain in her voice.
'Mirelle, dear Mirelle!' he said; and then the pent-up love of his
heart broke forth. He told her how he had loved her from the
moment that he first saw her, how, hopeless of ever winning her, he
had battled with his love, how vain his efforts had been, and how his
highest ambition was to live for her and make her happy. He spoke
in plain, simple words, with the rough eloquence of passion and
sincerity.
She listened to him, with her hands again on the mantelpiece,
looking at him, with her dark eyes wide open, and the red glow of
the fire in them. She did not follow his words, she heard them
without comprehending them. She was full of her own grief and
could think of nothing else.
She woke out of abstraction when he asked her, 'Mirelle, may I
think myself so happy as to be able to count on your being mine?'
'I will be your wife,' she said.
'Oh, dear, dear Mirelle! My whole life shall be devoted to you.
This is the happiest day I have ever known.'
'One thing I must say,' said she; 'you know I am a Catholic. I
will never give up my faith. You will assure me perfect freedom to
follow my own dear religion. I could live without everything, but not
without that.'
He gave her the requisite assurance.
'You and I,' she said sadly, 'have not the same faith—that is, as
far as I can see, you disbelieve in more than half of the verities

which are the very life of my soul. We cannot be united in the holiest
and most beautiful of all bonds, which has eternity before it, to
which both press on together. That cannot be. You go one way, I
another. But as far as can be, I will be all that you will require.'
'You are everything I desire now. I have but to look at you, and
I think I see a saint or angel from heaven.'
She put up her hand, and brushed his words away. They
offended her. But they were sincere; there was no flattery in them.
Mirelle was an ideal to Herring. Again he stepped forward. He would
take her hands, he would kiss colour and heat into those cold and
faded lips. He had a right to do this. Was she not about to become
his wife?
But again she drew back, and in a tone of mingled terror and
entreaty said, 'Oh, Mr. Herring. I pray you do not come nearer to
me. I am so frightened and bewildered. The thoughts that rise up
beat my temples and contract my heart. I have gone through a great
deal to-day, I have said that I will be your wife. Do not exact of me
more than I can bear. Do not press the advantage you have gained
over me, I entreat you. You are kind and considerate. I am not very
strong, and I think not very well. Leave me to myself, I pray you; go
away now. If I have made you happy, I am glad of it; let my promise
suffice. Come here to-morrow, if you will. No, no'—again with her
fear overmastering her, she grasped at a respite—'not to-morrow. I
shall not be sufficiently myself to receive you. The day after will do.
Then I shall have more strength to speak to you about the future.
Not now. I pray you leave me alone now.'
'Will you not even give me your hand?'

She hesitated, then timidly drew near, with her large eyes on
him full of anxiety, and she held out the long shaking white fingers.
He kissed them. They were cold as the fingers of the dead.
'I shall return the day after to-morrow,' he said.
'I shall be ready then to receive you,' she replied.
He went out. Then, when she knew that she was alone, at once
all her strength gave way, and she fell on her knees, clasping her
hands together, swaying her body in the agony of her pain, and
broke into a storm of tears.
Mirelle did not keep her word to Herring. She was unable to do
so. That night she was attacked by a nervous fever, and became
delirious. The strain had been too great for her delicate system.
Herring called, and heard how ill she was. He did not leave
Launceston; he remained till the crisis was past.
The doctors were uncertain what turn her illness would take,
and how to treat one constituted so differently from their run of
patients. In this uncertainty they did nothing, and, because they did
nothing, Mirelle recovered.
There was a natural elasticity in her youth which triumphed over
the disease.
Orange sat up with her, night after night. She would allow no
one else to share the burden with her till Mirelle's delirium was over.
During the height of the fever, Mirelle talked. Orange stayed
with her, not out of love for her cousin, but out of fear lest others
should discover, from the rambling talk of Mirelle, the secret which
she alone possessed. The name of Trecarrel was often on the lips of
Mirelle; she prayed, and broke off in the midst of a prayer to speak
of Trecarrel. At the same time she seemed oppressed by a great

terror, and she cried out to be saved from what was coming. Not
once did the name of John Herring pass her lips.
When, at length, Mirelle was well enough to be moved
downstairs, then Herring was admitted to see her. He had repeatedly
sat before, by the hour, with Mrs. Trampleasure or with Orange,
talking of the poor girl lying ill upstairs.
'She has been delirious,' said Orange, 'and, if it were not unfair,
I could tell you how often your name——'
'It is unfair,' interrupted Herring, 'and I decline to listen.'
'As you like,' said Orange, shrugging her shoulders; and, as she
left the room, she sneered.
When John Herring saw Mirelle at last, he could hardly
command his tears, she looked so thin and transparent; her eyes
were very large and bright, her face like ivory. She held out her hand
to him. He scarce ventured to touch it. She seemed to him like the
ghost-moth which, when grasped by the hand, vanishes, leaving
only silvery plumes sprinkled over the fingers.
He kissed the wasted hand with reverence and love, not with
passion, and Mirelle smiled.
'Mr. Herring,' she said, 'I have had a long time to myself, whilst I
have been ill, in which to prepare my thoughts. What must be—must
be, and may be soon. It is now Advent, a season in which it is
forbidden by the Church to marry; but I will be yours as soon after
Christmas as you like. Do not doubt. When I am your wife I will do
my duty.'
CHAPTER XXXIX.

WELLTOWN.
John Herring returned to Welltown. There was much to occupy him
there. He must prepare the house to receive its mistress. He must
get what he could ready for the extension of the slate-quarry. The
breakwater could not be begun in winter, but the stone could be
quarried for it among the granite of Row-tor, and the head taken off
where the slate was to be worked.
Welltown was a bleak spot. It stood against a hill, only a little
way in from the head of the cliffs. The hill had been quarried for the
stone of which the house was built, and then the end of the house
had been thrust into the hole thus scooped. The hill rose rapidly, and
its drip fell over the eaves of the old quarry about the walls of the
house. If the hill had been to seaward it would have afforded some
shelter, but it was on the inland side, and the house was therefore
exposed to the raging blasts, salt with Atlantic spray, that roared
over the bare surface of the land. Not a tree could stand against it,
not a shrub, except privet and the so-called teaplant. Larches shot
up a few feet and lost their leaders; even the ash died away at the
head, and bore leaves only near the ground. A few beech-trees were
like broken-backed beggars bent double.
Day and night the roar of the ocean filled the air, the roar of an
ocean that rolled in unbroken swell from Labrador, and dashed itself
against the ironbound coast in surprise and fury at being arrested;
beneath its stormy blows the very mainland quivered.
Welltown was an old house, built at the end of the sixteenth
century by a certain Baldwin Tink, who cut his initials on the
dripstone terminations of the main entrance. The Tinks had owned

the place for several generations, yeomen aspiring to become
gentlemen, without arms, but hoping to acquire a grant. Baldwin
had built one wing and a porch, and proposed in time to erect
another wing, but his ability to build was exhausted, and none of his
successors were able to complete the house; so it remained a queer
lopsided erection, the earnest of a handsome mansion unfulfilled.
Baldwin Tink was an ambitious man; he expected to be able to form
a quadrangle, and pierced his porch with gateways opposite each
other, so that the visitor might pass through into the courtyard, and
there dismount in shelter. But as he was unable to add a second
wing to the front, so was he also unable to complete his quadrangle;
and the porch served as a gathering place for the winds, whence
they rushed upstairs and through chambers, piping at keyholes,
whizzing under doors, extinguishing candles, fluttering arras. The
windows were mullioned and cut in granite, the mullions heavy and
the lights narrow. The porch was handsomely proportioned and
deeply moulded, but as want of funds had prevented Baldwin Tink
from completing his exterior, so had it prevented him from properly
furnishing the house inside. The staircase was mean, provisional,
rudely erected out of wreck timber, and the impanelled walls were
plastered white. As the rain drove against the house, fierce, pointed
as lances, it smote between the joints of the stones, and, though the
walls were thick, penetrated to the interior and blotched the white
inward face with green and black stains. There was no keeping it
out. When the house was built, nothing was known of brick linings,
and the only way in which the builders of those days treated defects
was to conceal them behind oak panelling. Poverty forbade this at
Welltown, and so the walls remained with their infirmities

undisguised. Our readers may have seen a grey ass on a moor in a
storm of hail. The poor brute is unable to face the gale, and
therefore presents his hinder quarters to it, and if there be a rock or
a tree near, the ass sets his nose against it, and stands motionless
with drooping ears, patiently allowing his rear to bear the brunt.
Welltown presented much this appearance—a dead wall was towards
the sea, and the head of the house was against the hill. The
furiousness of the gales from the south and west prevented Baldwin
Tink facing his house so as to catch the sun in his windows, and the
only casement in the entire house through which a golden streak fell
was that of the back kitchen.
What the house would have been when completed can only be
conjectured; as it was, it was picturesque, but dreary to the last
degree.
The Tinks had long since passed away from Welltown. The final
representative of the family, unable to complete the house, sold the
estate. With the proceeds he started a drapery shop at Camelford,
and died a rich man. Political economists lament the extinction of the
old race of English yeomen, and advocate the creation of a race of
peasant proprietors. A natural law has fought against the yeoman,
and will forbid the spread of peasant proprietorships. The capital
that is sunk in land produces two and a half per cent., that sunk in
trade brings in ten, twenty, twenty-five per cent. The young yeoman
had rather sell his paternal acres to the squire and invest the
purchase-money in business, than struggle on upon the farm all his
life, without the prospect of becoming, in the end, more wealthy
than when he started.

Welltown passed through one or two hands, and then came to
the Herrings, who occupied it for three generations, and, having
married women with a little money, had got on some little way, not
far, in the social scale. The slate-quarry had brought in money, not
much, for the demand was limited. The neighbourhood was thinly
populated, and little building was done. But the equinoctial gales
came to the assistance of the Herrings, for after every gale carts
came for slates to repair the devastation done to roofs by the wind.
The sale of slates enabled the Herrings to enlarge their dairy by the
purchase of additional cows. They salted their butter, and sent it in
firkins to Bristol by the little boats that plied up the Channel from the
port of Boscastle.
John Herring had let the farm, on his father's death, to an old
hind, Hender[1] Benoke, who had married John's nurse, Genefer;
and this couple lived in the house, and when he was there attended
to him.
[1] Hender is the modern Cornish form of Enoder. There was a Cornish saint of the
name. Genefer is Gwenever.
Now that Herring was interested in the slate-quarry, he built himself
an office near it, on the cliff above a deep gulf called Blackapit,
gnawed by the waves in the headland of Willapark. In this office
were a fireplace and a bed.
Welltown had to be done up to receive the bride, and whilst it
was in the hands of plasterers, carpenters, and painters, Herring
lived in his office by the slate-quarry. He was comfortable and
independent there. Genefer came there every day to attend to his

wants; but he dined at Welltown in the evening, after the quarrymen
had left work.
One morning, after Genefer had made his breakfast, she stood
beside the table, with her hands folded, watching him.
Genefer Benoke was a handsome woman still, though over fifty.
She had very thick brown hair, high cheekbones, a dark complexion,
and large, wild, pale grey eyes. She was a tall, well-built woman,
abrupt in manner and capricious in temper. Hender, her husband,
was a gloomy, sour man, always nursing a grievance and grumbling
against some one; a man who considered himself wronged by every
one with whom he dealt; by his master, who treated him liberally; by
his wife, whom, however, he feared; by his workmen, because they
were idle. He was dragged by his wife to chapel, and he grumbled
because he was obliged to pay for his pew, and he was angry with
the minister because he was making a good thing out of the
credulity of his congregation. He was jealous of the storekeepers at
Boscastle, because they were making unfair profit on their goods. He
was sulky with his pigs because they ran to bone rather than to fat,
and with his poultry because they laid their eggs where they were
not readily found. He growled at his Bible because the printing was
too small for his eyes, and was bitter against his clothes because
they wore out.
Genefer was a strange woman. The Keltic blood in her veins
was pure. A wild, dreamy woman, who had acted as white witch till
she thought the profession sinful and had given it up, to throw
herself with all the vehemence of her nature into one of those
fantastic forms of dissent that thrive so vigorously on Keltic soil. She
prophesied, she saw visions, and dreamed. None hunted the devil

with more vehemence and pertinacity than Genefer Benoke—the
devil-hunting with her was no pretence; she saw him, she smelt him,
and she pursued him, now with a broom, then with her bare hands.
[1] She went into fits, she had the 'jerks,' she foamed at the mouth,
she rolled on the floor and shrieked, and exhibited all the outward
signs of a regenerate and converted person.
[1] Devil-hunting is a favourite feature among some of the wilder sects in
Cornwall. Very extraordinary scenes may be witnessed at one of these chases.
There was no hypocrisy in her. If there had been the least tinge of
unreality, her husband would have fastened on it, and her power
over him would have been at an end. But her trances and fits and
visions were real, and he regarded her as a person of superior
spiritual powers, almost inspired, gifted with supernatural clearness
of vision.
'Master John,' said Genefer, 'you've a-told me sure enough why
there be all that havage (disturbance) in the old house, fit to worry a
saint of God out of life, what with the smeech (smell) of paint, and
the hammerings, and the sawings, and the plasterings. You've a-told
me, right enough, that there be a new mistress coming, and I be not
that footy to go against it. The Lord said, "It is not good for man to
be alone," and that settles the matter; but I want to know what she
be like.'
'Oh, dear Jenny, she is everything that she ought to be. You
may take my word for that.'
'Ah! all fowl be good fowl till you come to pluck 'em. There be
maidens and maidens, and you must not take 'em by what they

purfess, but by what they be. When the Lord were by the Sea of
Tiberias, He seed a poor man coming out of the tombs, exceeding
fierce, and He axed, What be thy name? Then he answered, Legion,
which means six thousand. But the Lord knowed better than that,
and He sed, sed He; "Come out of him thou one unclean spirit, and
go into the swine." Ah! if you listen to what they sez of themselves,
they be Legion—six thousand. Loramussy! with their airs and their
graces, and their good looks, and their fortune, and their learning,
and their pianny-playing, and their flower-painting, and this and that
—they'd make you believe they was possessed with a legion of
graces, but when you come to get hold and look close, there be
naught there but one mean and selfish spirit, bad enough to make a
pig mazed.'
'My dear Jenny, I hope and trust your future mistress will please
you, but you don't expect that I should put the choosing into your
hands.'
'I don't that 'xactly, Master John. No, I don't go so far as that.
But you might have done worse. There be none but a woman as can
see into a woman. It be just the same as with the Freemasons. They
knows one another wherever they be, and in the midst of a crowd;
but you as bain't in the secret have no idea how. It be just the same
with women. Us knows one another fast enough, and what is hid
from you men be clear to we. There were a battle against Ephraim,
and the men of Gilead took the passages of Jordan, and when the
Ephraimites were a-flying, then said the Gileadites to 'em, "Say
Shibboleth!" and they said Sibboleth, for they could not frame to
pronounce it right. So they took them and slew them there. I tell
you, Master John, there don't at no time meet two women wi'out

one putting the Shibboleth to the other and finding out whether her
belongs to Ephraim or Gilead. I'd like to know of the missis as be
coming what her be like, but I know very well it be no good my
axing of you. You've not took her down to the passages of Jordan
and tried her there.'
'Ask me what I can tell you, and I will satisfy you to the best of
my power.'
'Master John, it be a false beginning papering the porch room
with white and gold. The bare whitewash were good enough for
your mother and your grandmother, and it would be good enough
for your wife, I reckon, if her were of the proper sort. And if her be
not, let her take herself off from Welltown. Will you tell me this,
Master John; be she a Cornish woman?'
'No, Jenny, I do not think she is.'
'Be she strong and hearty, wi' brave red rosy cheeks and a pair
of strong arms?'
'She is slender and pale, Jenny.'
'A fine wife that for Welltown! Pale and weak: that be as I
dreamed. But it were no dream—it were a revelation. What sort be
her as to her religion? Be her a Churchwoman, or one of God's
elect?'
'That is an unfair way of putting it,' laughed Herring.
'I put it the way it be written in the Book of Light,' answered
Genefer, doggedly.
'She is a Roman Catholic,' said Herring. 'I hope now you are
satisfied.'
'See there!' exclaimed Genefer. 'What sez the Scriptur?—"Thou
shalt not plough with the ox and the ass together." What do that

mean but that two of a sort should run together under the same
yoke of matrimony? If you be Church, take a Church wife; if you be
a Cornishman, don't fetch an ass out of Devon to plough the lands
of Welltown wi' you. What sez the prophet?—"Can two walk together
except they be agreed?" Here be you two arn't agreed about what
be chiefest of all, and how will you walk together along the way of
life?'
'My dear Jenny, you have had the management so long that you
presume. I am not any longer a boy to be ordered about, and I must
insist on no more of this sort of interference with my affairs. You
acted as a mother to me when I was deprived as an infant of my
own natural mother, and I shall ever love you dearly for all you have
done for me. But, Jenny, there are limits to forbearance, and you
transgress.'
'Ah, sure!' exclaimed Genefer Benoke, 'it were I as made you
what you 'm be. I didn't spoil you as some would have done. You 'm
a good and proper squire, because I trained the sapling. "Spare the
rod, spoil the child," said the wise king, Master John, when the old
miners were seeking a lode they took a hazel-rod in their hands, and
they went over the ground a holding of thicky. And when they
passed above a lode the rod turned in their hands. It were all the
same wi' hidden treasure. I've a heard of a Trevalga man, as he
went over the mounds of Bosinney wi' such a divining-rod, and it
turned, and he dug and found King Arthur's golden crown and table.
It be all the same with mortal earth. If you want to bring to light the
pure ore, the hidden treasure, you must go over it wi' a stick. There
be good metal in you, Master John, and you may thank your old

nurse that her didn't spare the rod. Her explored you pretty freely
with the divining-wand.'
'I am thankful, Genefer,' said Herring, laughing; 'I recall many of
these same explorations, and they have left on me an ineffaceable
respect for you, and some fear is mingled with the love I bear you.'
'It is right it should be so. What 'ud you have been without me?
Your mother died when you was a baby. Your father couldn't be a
nursing of you by night and day. It were I as did all that. I'd had a
chance child,'—in a self-exculpatory tone, 'the lambs o' the Lord
must play;' then louder: 'and I'd a lost it. I did everything for you, I
were a proper mother to you, and so it be that I love you as my own
child; and as the Lord has not seen fit to give me none of my own
body, saving that chance child as died—and I reckon the stock of
Hender be too crabbed and sour to be worth perpetuating—what
have I to live for, and care for, and provide for, but you? And see
this, Master John. King David said as the Lord rained snares out of
heaven: snares be ropes with nooses at the end; and King David sez
the Lord hangs these out of every cloud, whereby them as walks
unawares may hang themselves. What be them hangman's ropes
dangling about, thick as rain-streaks, but all those things God has
made, and with which he surrounds us, by which we may lift
ourselves above the earth if we be prudent; but if we be fools, then
we shall strangle ourselves therein. I reckon the new mistress be
one of the Lord's snares hanging down out of heaven. If you use a
wife properly, and lay hold of her, and pull yourself up by her, then
you will mount to heaven; but if you let her get round your throat,
her'll sure to throttle you. That be what makes me badwaddled'
(troubled) 'about you, now I see you wi' such a rope before you.

Keep your feet and hands a working up her, and don't you never let
her knot herself round you.'
Such was the house and such were the persons destined to
receive Mirelle. John Herring loved Welltown; he had been born
there and bred there. Every stone was dear to him. The dreary
scenery was full of romance and beauty because associated with
early memories. Old Genefer he loved; she had been his nurse, his
guide, his friend. She was masterful, and exercised the authority of a
mistress; but this had grown with years, and was at first endured, at
last disregarded. It had become a part of Welltown, and was sacred
accordingly. Herring was too full of content with his own home, of
admiration for the barren coast scenery, to suppose that the same
would not equally delight Mirelle. He would explain to Mirelle the
good points in Genefer's character, the greatness of the debt due to
her, and for the sake of these she would overlook her faults.
Alas! the place and the persons that were to receive Mirelle
were the most uncongenial to her nature that could have been
selected.
But to return to the office on Willapark, and Genefer standing at
the table before her foster child.
'I told you,' said the old woman, 'that I had dreamed; but it
weren't a dream, but a vision, falling into a trance, but having my
eyes open. I thought, Master John, that it were a wisht' (wild) 'night,
and the wind were a tearing and a ramping over the hills and driving
of the snow before it in clouds. And I saw how that, in the whirl of
the wind, the snow heaped herself up like the pillar of salt between
Zoar and Sodom. And I saw how you, Master John, thought it were
wonderful and beautiful, that you stood before it mazed. And when

the night were gone, and the sun came out, and it glittered like a
pillar of diamonds, then you cast your arms round it, to hold it to
your heart; and you looked up to it for all the world as though
expecting something as never came and never could come. And you
laid your heart against that pillar of snow, and when I would have
drayed you away you sed, "See, Jenny, how fair and pure she be!"
But I could not take you away; and still you looked up into the snow,
asking wi' your eyes for something that never came, and in nature
never could come. But wi' the warmth of your heart it all began to
melt away; and still you looked; and it ran between your fingers, and
dripped in streams from your heart, and trickled down your face like
tears; and so it thawed slowly away, and still you held to the snow,
and looked, and nothing came. That be the way the heat went out
of your heart, and the colour died from your cheek, and your lips
grew dead, and your hands stiff, and the tears on your cheeks were
frosted to icicles, and your hair waxed white as wool; and when all
had melted clean away still you was the same, wi' your arms
stretched out and your eyes uplifted—not now to the snow bride, for
that were gone, but to a star that twinkled aloft over where she had
been, and I touched you, for I were troubled, but could not move
you—you were hard ice.'
CHAPTER XL.
NOEL! NOEL!

Christmas had come, not a day of frost or snow, but of warm south
breezes charged with rain; no sun shining, but grey light struggling
through piles of vapour. Mirelle was so much better that she was
able to go in a coach to Trecarrel to mass. A priest was staying there
for a few days.
The mass was early, and she left before dawn, but the day
broke while she was at Trecarrel, and there was as much light in the
sky, when she prepared to leave, as there would be throughout the
day.
Captain Trecarrel came to her, to insist on her coming into the
house and having some breakfast. It would not do for her, in her
delicate condition, recovering from illness, to remain so long without
food. She declined, gently, and the utmost he could bring her to
accept was a cup of coffee and some bread, brought to the carriage
in which she had seated herself, wrapped in shawls, for her return
journey.
Captain Trecarrel, standing at the coach-door, thought her
lovelier than he had ever seen her. There was none of the proud
self-reliance in her face now that had marked her when she first
came to Launceston. She was thin, tremulous, and frail as a white
harebell; with a frightened, entreating look in her large dark eyes, a
look that seemed to confess weakness, and entreat that she might
be left to herself.
Captain Trecarrel knew nothing about her engagement to John
Herring. If it had been known in Launceston, it would have come to
his ears, for the Captain was a great gossip. The secret had been
well kept; it was not only not known, it was unsuspected. Orange

had not spoken of it, and her mother had been restrained from
cackling by sharing in the general ignorance.
'In case I do not see you before the new year, I must wish you
a happy one,' said Mirelle, holding out her hand. 'Now, please tell
the coachman to drive on.'
'The year can hardly be nappy for me,' said the Captain, and
sighed. 'Dear Countess Mirelle, suffer me to take a place beside you.
I want to go into Launceston on business, and I shall be grateful for
a lift.'
'Business to-day! Do not these English keep the feast? I have
heard Orange and her mother anticipate Christmas, but almost
wholly because of the plum-pudding.'
'The bells are ringing,' answered Trecarrel. And on the warm air
came a merry peal of village bells. Captain Trecarrel saw the
supplicating look in her eyes, a look entreating him not to take
advantage of her weakness; but he was too selfish to regard it, he
accepted her silence as consent, jumped into the chaise, and told
the coachman to drive on.
There was no sign in the manner of either that a thought was
given to the return of the visiting cards. That was Christmas day, a
day of joy and reconciliation, of peace on earth, and general
goodwill. Why rip up a sore? Let the past be forgotten, at least for a
day. Captain Trecarrel was puzzled about those cards. Were they
Mirelle's answer to the letter he had written to her? His offer of
protection under the wing of his aunt at Penzance had been
unnecessary, because Mirelle was not penniless. She had means at
her disposal of which he knew nothing. Probably her father's money

in Brazil had been forwarded to her, and reached her, fortunately,
after the death of her trustee.
Trecarrel was not a man to love deeply any one but himself. His
feelings for Orange had never been strong; if he cared for any one
beside himself, it was for Mirelle. Had he offended her by his letter?
Was it really she who had sent the cards back to him? He was
determined to find out.
'You directed a letter to me some weeks ago,' he said.
'Yes; Orange had sprained her wrist, and she asked me to
address the letter for her.'
'I was disappointed on opening it. I knew your handwriting at
once; it was so unlike that of an Englishwoman, so French in its
neatness. An Englishwoman scrawls, a Frenchwoman writes.'
'I have noticed that.'
'I was disappointed on opening the cover. I thought it might
contain your reply to my letter.'
'What letter?'
'That which I wrote to you when you were at Mr. Flamank's
house.'
'I did not receive it.'
'The loss is not great. It was sent to inform you that I was
confined to my bed, and that I was too gravely indisposed to follow
the dictates of my heart and fly to your succour.'
'Orange, I am sure, felt your absence greatly.'
'You, also, would have been thankful for my assistance, surely.'
'Yes; but I had no right to expect it. Orange had a right to exact
it.'
Trecarrel bit his lip.

'You seem, dear Countess, to have been very ill. You look
terribly fragile and white.'
'I have been unwell——'
'More than unwell—ill; dangerously ill?'
'Yes; my head was bad. I did not know anything or any person
for several days.'
'I fear these wretched troubles have been the cause. O that I
could have been near to give advice and protection; but important
business—military, of course—called me to Exeter, and when I
returned to Trecarrel, I was prostrated by a nervous attack for a
week. I fear you have been embarrassed for money, but now, I
understand, matters are settled agreeably.'
'We are not troubled about money matters any more, nor likely
to be so.'
'I trust not.'
'Because, if you were, I would say, command me. I am not a
rich man, but still, bless my soul, I can help a friend at a pinch, and
am proud to do so.'
'There is no occasion, Captain Trecarrel. All fear of pecuniary
embarrassment is at an end.'
'I hear everything at Dolbeare was bought by you.'
'All was bought in my name.'
'And the Trampleasures, mère et fille, are your guests. How long
will this continue?'
'I do not know.'
'It is not pleasant to be sponged on, especially——'
'I beg your pardon. I feel it a duty and a pleasure to do
everything I can for them. They have been kind to me.'

'Then you saddle yourself with them indefinitely. I hope the load
will not crush you.'
Mirelle made no reply. She did not like the contemptuous tone in
which he spoke of the Trampleasures, and Orange was to be his
wife. She looked out of the coach window on her side.
'Old Tramplara's death was, of course, a great shock to me,'
continued Trecarrel; 'so sudden, too, arresting me on the threshold
of my marriage. It was a trial to my nervous system; but I am frank
to confess, it was to some extent a relief.'
Mirelle looked round with surprise.
'I may as well tell you the whole truth,' said the Captain. 'You
are in the midst of cross purposes, and do not understand the game.
It is only fair that I should give you your orientation. I always
admired Orange; she is a handsome, genial girl, somewhat brusque
and wanting in polish, but good-hearted. I called a good deal at
Dolbeare, not only to see her, but to keep Mr. Trampleasure in good
humour. I am a man of very small income and with good position in
the county, which I am expected to live up to. I have been pinched
for money, and I wanted Mr. Trampleasure to advance me a loan. So
I got on intimate terms with the family, and, somehow, he made my
prospects contingent on my taking Orange as wife. Then the sum I
wanted would be given as her dower. You understand. Well, being a
light-hearted, giddy young fellow, I fell into the arrangement, and all
went smoothly enough till you came.'
Mirelle gasped for breath. She put her hand to the window.
'You want air,' said the Captain. 'I will let down the glasses.'
Mirelle thanked him with a bend of the head; she could not
speak. A great terror had come over her.

'When you came,' continued Trecarrel, 'then I woke to the fact
that I had never loved Orange. I had admired her beauty as I might
admire a well-built horse or spaniel, but my heart had not been
touched.'
'Oh, Mr. Trecarrel!' exclaimed Mirelle, putting her white fingers
together, 'let me out of the carriage. I must walk; I shall faint; I feel
very ill.'
'Dear Mirelle—you will let me call you Mirelle?—you must not
walk; you are not strong enough.'
'I pray you! I pray you!'
Then he stopped the coach, opened the door, and had the steps
lowered.
'The lady is faint. Go slowly, coachman. She wishes to walk a
little way.'
Then he helped Mirelle to alight, and pressed her fingers as he
did so, and looked at her tenderly out of his beautiful blue eyes.
'No,' she said, as he offered her his arm, 'I must walk alone.
The road is rough. I shall be better presently. The carriage jolts.'
'You cannot walk,' answered the Captain; 'I see that you have
not the strength. I insist on your taking my arm, or stepping back
into the carriage. I am very thankful that I came with you. You are
not in a fit state to be alone.'
She turned and looked at him. 'Oh, Mr. Trecarrel, I should have
been far better alone.'
'Why so, Mirelle?'
'I cannot say. I need not have talked.'
'Do not talk now; listen, whilst I speak to you.'
'Speak then of something else—not of Orange.'

'I do not wish to speak of Orange. I will speak only of yourself.'
She held up her hands again, in that same entreating manner. 'I
am too weak,' she whispered.
Her ankle turned as she stepped on the loose stones. A mist
drifted across her eyes, so that she could not see the road. The air
was rich with the music of church bells, the merry Christmas peal of
Launceston tower and the village churches round, calling and crying,
Noel! Noel! Noel! Glad tidings of great joy! Roast beef and plum
pudding and mince-pies! Good Christian men rejoice! Pudding
sprigged with holly, and over the pudding brandy sauce, blazing
blue! Noel! Roast beef garnished with horse-radish! Noel! Mince-pies
piping hot. Turn again, Whittington, to your Christmas dinner. Noel!
Noel! Noel!
Mirelle did not hear the bells.
'No, I cannot walk,' she said.
Then Captain Trecarrel helped her back into the coach.
'I shall be better alone,' she said.
'You must not be left alone,' he replied. 'I cannot in conscience
allow you to go on without me to look after you. As you are so weak
after your illness, it was madness to come out this Christmas
morning.'
She sighed and submitted. He stepped in beside her and closed
the door.
'Mirelle,' he said, 'I will not be interrupted in what I was saying,
because I have determined to throw my mind and heart open to
you. I dare say you have wondered how my engagement to Orange
hung fire. I was bound to her, but my heart was elsewhere. You
cannot understand the distressing situation in which I found myself,

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