Read it through once

Mrs. Barfield, or the Saint, as she was called, belonged, like Esther, to the sect known as the Plymouth Brethren. She was the daughter of one of the farmers on the estate--a very old man called Elliot. He had spent his life on his barren down farm, becoming intimate with no one, driving hard bargains with all, especially the squire and the poor flint-pickers. He could be seen still on the hill-sides, his long black coat buttoned strictly about him, his soft felt hat crushed over the thin, grey face. Pretty Fanny Elliot had won the squire's heart as he rode across the down. Do you not see the shy figure of the Puritan maiden tripping through the gorse, hastening the hoofs of the squire's cob? And, furnished with some pretext of estate business, he often rode to the farm that lay under the shaws at the end of the coombe. The squire had to promise to become one of the Brethren and he had to promise never to bet again, before Fanny Elliot agreed to become Mrs. Barfield. The ambitious members of the Barfield family declared that the marriage was social ruin, but more dispassionate critics called it a very suitable match; for it was not forgotten that three generations ago the Barfields were livery-stable keepers; they had risen in the late squire's time to the level of county families, and the envious were now saying that the Barfield family was sinking back whence it came.