Could not the sun have been content to set, without becoming a link with a past she shrank from, so many were the evil memories that clung about it? She was glad that someone should come into the room, to break through this one. There was nothing in this good-humoured villager—surely Pomona's self in a cotton print, somewhat older than is usual with that goddess—nothing but what served to banish these nightmares of her lonely recollection. Only, mind you, Sam Rendall—that was Wat Tyler's name, this time—was a good man, who deserved to have had that daughter's children on his knee. She, Maisie, had deserted hers.

"May happen you'll call me to mind, ma'am, me and my old mother, at the door of Strides Cottage, two days agone. I made bold to look in, hoping to see you better." Thus Pomona, and old Maisie was grateful for the wholesome voice. Still, she was puzzled, being unconscious that she had seemed so ill. Pomona thought her introduction of herself had not been clear, and repeated:—"Strides Cottage, just this side Chorlton, betwixt Farmer Jones and the Reedcroft—where her young ladyship bid stop the carriage...." She paused to let the old lady think. Perhaps she was going too fast.

But no—it was not that at all. Old Maisie was quite clear about the incident, and its whereabouts. "Oh yes!" said she. "I knew it was Strides Cottage, because I had the name from my little Davy, for the envelopes of his letters. And I knew Farmer Jones, because of his Bull. It was only a bit of fatigue, with the long ride." Then as the bald disclaimer of any need for solicitude seemed a chill return for Pomona's cordiality, old Maisie hastened to add a corollary:—"I did not find the time to thank your mother as I would have liked to do; but I get old and slow, and the coachman was a bit quick of his whip. I should be sorry for you to think me ungrateful, or your good mother."

It was as well that she added this, for there was a shade of wavering in Ruth Thrale's heart as to whether the interview was welcome. A trace of that jealousy about Dave just hung in Maisie's manner. And she rather stood committed, by not having accepted the mutton-broth. That corollary may have been Heaven-sent, to keep the mother and daughter in touch, in the dark—just for a chance of light!

And yet it only just served its turn. For the daughter's half-hesitating reply:—"But I thought I would look in," if expanded to explanation-point, would have been worded:—"I came to show good-will, more than from any grounded misgivings about your health, ma'am; and now, having shown it, it is time to go." And she might have departed, easily.

But Fate also showed good-will, and would not permit it. Old Mrs. Picture became suddenly alive to the presence of a well-wisher, and to her own reluctance to drive her away. "Oh, but you need not go yet," said she. "Or perhaps they want you?"

Oh dear no!—nobody wanted her. Her friend she came with, her Cousin Keziah, was talking to Mrs. Masham. The pleasant presence would remain, its owner said, and take a seat near the fire. The old lady was glad, for she had had but little talk with anyone that day. Her morning interview with Gwen had been a short one, for that young lady was longing to get away for a second visit to her lover.

Old Maisie, to encourage possible diffidence to believe that a quiet chat would really be welcome to her, made reference to the disappointment such a short allowance of her young ladyship had been, and resuming her high-backed chair, put on her spectacles to get a better view of her visitor—oh, how unconsciously!

Think of the last kiss she gave a sleeping baby, half a century ago!

There was, of course, a topic they could speak of—little Dave Wardle, dear to both. Widow Thrale, fond as she had been of the child, had not Granny Marrable's bias towards monopolizing him. That was the result of a grande passion, generated perhaps by the encouragement the young man had given to a second Granny, so very equivalent to his first. Moreover, there was that obscure reference in his letters to an accident—for axdnt was a mere clerical error. She worded an inquiry after Dave, tentatively.

"I have not seen the dear child for four weeks," said old Maisie. "Oh dear me, yes—four weeks and more! Let me see, when was the accident?... Oh dear!—how the time does slip away!..."

"Was that the accident Dave speaks of in his letter? We could not quite make out Dave's letter. Sometimes 'tis a little to seek, what the child means."

Old Maisie nodded assent. "But he'll soon be quite a scholar and write his own letters all through. I think her ladyship took this one to send it back. I can tell you about the accident. It was owing to the repairs." The old lady pursued the subject in the true spirit of a narrator, beginning at a wrong end, by preference one unintelligible to her hearer. In consequence, the actual fall of the house-wall was postponed, in favour of a description of its cause, which dealt specially with the blamelessness of Mr. Bartlett, and incidentally with the dishonesty of some colleagues of his, of whom he had spoken as "they," without particulars. Her leniency to Mr. Bartlett was entirely founded on the fact that she had conversed with him once on the subject, and had been mysteriously impressed with his simplicity and manliness. How did Mr. Bartlett manage it? A faint percentage of beer, like foreign matter in analyses, is not alone enough to establish integrity. Nor a flavour of clothes.

The wall fell in the end, and Widow Thrale saw a light on the story, after expressing more admiration and sympathy for Mr. Bartlett than was human, under the circumstances. She was much impressed. "And by the mercy of God you were all saved, ma'am," said she. "Her young ladyship and little Dave, and his sister, and yourself!" It really seemed quite a stroke of business, this, on the part of a Superior Power, which had left building materials and gravitation, after creating them, to their own wayward impulses.

Old Maisie admitted the beneficence of Providence, but rather as an act of courtesy. "For," said she, "we were never in any real danger, owing to the piece of timber Mr. Bartlett had thrown across to catch the floor-joists." She was of course repeating Mr. Bartlett's own words, without close analysis of their actual meaning. Her mind only just avoided associations of cricket. But poor Susan Burr—oh dear!—that was much worse. "She has done wonderfully well, though," continued the old lady, "and her case gave the greatest satisfaction to the Doctors at the Hospital. She has written to me herself since leaving. And she must be really better, because she has gone to her married niece at Clapham." It seemed a sort of destiny that this niece's wifehood should always be emphasized. It was almost implied that a less complete recovery would have resulted in a journey to a single niece, at Clapham; or possibly, only at Battersea. Widow Thrale was interested in the accident, but she wanted to get back to Dave Wardle. "Then no one could live in the house, ma'am," she said, "after it had fallen down?"

"Not in my rooms upstairs, nor his Aunt M'riar's underneath. Only his uncle stopped in, to keep the place. His room was all safe. It was like the front of two rooms, all down in the street as if it was an earthquake. And no forewarning, above a crack or two! But the children safe, God be thanked, and her young ladyship! Also her cousin, Miss Grahame, down below with Aunt M'riar."

"That lady we call Sister Nora?"

"That lady. But I was so stunned and dazed with the start it gave me, and the noise, that I had no measure of anything. They took me home with them. I can just call to mind moving in the carriage, and the lamplighter." Old Maisie recollected seeing the lamplighter, but she had forgotten how she was got into that carriage.

"Then you hardly saw the children?"

"I was all mazed. I heard my Dolly cry, poor little soul! Her ladyship says Dave took Dolly up very short for being such a coward. But he kissed her, for comfort, and to keep her in heart."

"He didn't cry!"

"Davy?—not he. Davy makes it a point to be afraid of nothing. His uncle has taught him so. He was"—here some hesitation—"he belonged to what they called the Prize Ring. A professional boxer." It sounded better than "prizefighter"—more restrained.

"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale. "Yes. I had heard that."

"But he is a good man," said old Maisie, warming to the defence of Uncle Mo. "He is indeed! He won't let Dave fight, only a little now and then. But Dave says he told him, Uncle Mo did, that if ever he saw a boy hit a little girl, he was to hit that boy at once, without stopping to think how big he was. And he told him where! Is not that a good man?"

"Oh dear!" said Widow Thrale again, uneasily. "Won't Dave hit some boy that's too strong for him, and get hurt?"

"I think he may, ma'am. But then ... someone may take his part! I should pray." She went on to repeat an adventure of Dave's, when he behaved as directed to a young monster who was stuffing some abomination into a little girl's mouth. But it ended with the words:—"The boy ran away." Perhaps Uncle Mo had judged rightly of the class of boy that he had in mind, as almost sure to run away.

The Pomona in Widow Thrale had gone behind a cloud during her misgivings about Uncle Mo. The cloud passed, as the image of this boy fled from Nemesis. He was a London boy, evidently, and up to date. The Feudal System, as surviving at Chorlton, countenanced no such boys. The voice of Pomona was cheerful again as she resumed Dave:—"Where, then, is the boy, till he goes back home?"

"His aunt has got him at her mother's, at Ealing. His real grandmother's." Pomona had a subconsciousness that this made three; an outrageous allowance of grandmothers for any boy! But she would not say so, as this old lady might be sensitive about her own claims, which might be called in question if Dave's list was revised.

Ealing recalled an obscure passage in his letter, which was really an insertion, in the text, of the address of his haven of refuge. It read, transcribed literally:—"My grandMother is hEALing," and the recollection of it reinforced the laugh with which Pomona pleaded to misinterpretation. "Mother and I both thought she had cut herself," said she.

Old Maisie, amused at Dave, made answer:—"No!—it's where he is. Number Two, Penkover Terrace, Ealing. Penkover is very hard to recollect. So do write it down. Write it now. I shall very likely forget it directly; because when I get tired with talking, I swim, and the room goes round.... Oh no—I'm not tired yet, and you do me good to talk to."

But the old lady had talked to the full extent of her tether. But even in this short conversation the impression made upon her by this new acquaintance was so favourable that she felt loth to let her depart; to leave her, perhaps, to some memory of the past as painful as the one she had interrupted. If she had spoken her exact mind she would have said:—"No, don't go yet. I can't talk much, but it makes me happy to sit here in the growing dusk and hear about Dave. It brings the child back to me, and does my heart good." That was the upshot of her thought, but she felt that their acquaintance was too short to warrant it. She was bound to make an effort, if not to entertain, at least to bear her share of the conversation.

"Tell me more about Davy, when you had him at the Cottage. Did he talk about me?" This followed her declaration that she was "not tired yet" in a voice that lost force audibly. Her visitor chose a wiser course than to make a parade of her readiness to take a hint and begone. She chatted on about Dave's stay with her a year since, about little things the story knows already, while the old lady vouched at intervals—quite truly—that she heard every word, and that her closed eyes did not mean sleep. The incident of Dave's having persisted—when he awaked and found "mother" looking at him, the day after his first arrival—that it was old Mrs. Picture upstairs, and how they thought the child was still dreaming, was really worth the telling. Old Maisie showed her amusement, and felt bound to rouse herself to say:—"The name is not really Picture, but it doesn't matter. I like Dave's name—Mrs. Picture!" It was an effort, and when she added:—"The name is really Prichard," her voice lost strength, and her hearer lost the name. Fate seemed against Dave's pronunciation being corrected.

You know the game we used to call Magic Music—we oldsters, when we were children? You know how, from your seat at the piano, you watched your listener striving to take the hints you strove to give, and wandering aimlessly away from the fire-irons he should have shouldered—the book he should have read upside down—the little sister he should have kissed or tickled—what not? You remember the obdurate pertinacity with which he missed fire, and balked the triumphant outburst that should have greeted his success? Surely, if some well-wisher among the choir of Angels, harping with their harps, had been at Chorlton then and there, under contract to guide Destiny, by playing loud and soft—not giving unfair hints—to the reuniting of the long-lost sisters, that Angel would have been hard tried to see how near the spark went to fire the train, yet flickered down and died; how many a false scent crossed the true one, and threw the tracker out!

Old Maisie's powers of sustained attention were, of course, much less than she supposed, and her visitor's pleasant voice, rippling on in the growing dusk, was more an anodyne than a stimulant. She did not go to sleep—people don't! But something that very nearly resembled sleep must have come to her. Whatever it was, she got clear of it to find, with surprise, that Mrs. Thrale, with her bonnet off, was making toast at the glowing wood-embers; and that candles were burning and that, somehow tea had germinated.

"I thought I would make you some toast, more our sort.... Oh yes! What the young lady has brought is very nice, but this will be hotter." The real Pomona never looked about fifty—she was a goddess, you see!—but if she had, and had made toast, she must have resembled Ruth Thrale.

Then old Maisie became more vividly alive to her visitor, helped by the fact that she had been unconscious in her presence. That was human nature. The establishment of a common sympathy about Lupin, the tea-purveyor, was social nature. Pomona had called Miss Lupin "the young lady." This had placed Miss Lupin; she belonged to a superior class, and her ministrations were a condescension. It was strange indeed that such trivialities should have a force to span the huge gulf years had dug between these two, and yet never show a rift in the black cloud of their fraud-begotten ignorance. They did draw them nearer together, beyond a doubt; especially that recognition of Miss Lupin's position. Old Maisie had never felt comfortable with the household, while always oppressed with gratitude for its benevolences. She had felt that she had expressed it very imperfectly to her young ladyship, to cause her to say:—"They will get all you want, I dare say. But how do they behave? That's the point! Are they giving themselves airs, or being pretty to you?" For this downright young beauty never minced matters. But naturally old Maisie had felt that she could do nothing but show gratitude for the attention of the household, especially as she could not for the life of her define the sources of her discomfort in her relations with it.

This saddler's widow from Chorlton, with all her village life upon her, and her utter ignorance of the monstrous world of Maisie's own past experience, came like a breath of fresh air. Was it Pomona though?—or was it the tea? Reserve gave way to an impulse of informal speech:—"My dear, you have had babies of your own?"

Pomona's open-eyed smile seemed to spread to her very finger-tips. "Babies? Me?" she exclaimed. "Yes, indeed! But not so very many, if you count them. Five, all told! Two of my little girls I lost—'tis a many years agone now. My two boys are aboard ship, one in the Black Sea, one in the Baltic. My eldest on the Agamemnon. My second—he's but sixteen—on the Tithonus. But he's seen service—he was at Bomarsund in August. Please God, when the war is over, they'll come back with a many tales for their mother and their granny! I lie awake and pray for them, nights."

The old lady kept her thoughts to herself—even spoke with unwarranted confidence of these boys' return. She shied off the subject, nevertheless. How about the other little girl, the one that still remained undescribed?

"My married daughter? She is my youngest. She's married to John Costrell's son at Denby's farm. Maisie. Her first little boy is just over a year old."

Old Maisie brightened, interested, at the name. A young Maisie, so near at hand! "My own name!" she said. "To think of that!" Yet, after all, the name was a common one.

"Called after her grandmother," said Ruth Thrale, equably—chattily. "Mother has gone over to-day to make up for not going on his birthday." Of course the "grandmother" alluded to was her own proper mother, the young mother on whose head that old silver hair she was watching so unconsciously had been golden brown, fifty years ago. For all that, Ruth spoke of her aunt as "mother," automatically. What wonder that old Maisie accepted Granny Marrable's Christian name as the same as her own. "My name is the same as your mother's, then!" seemed worth saying, on the whole, though it put nothing very uncommon on record.

How near the spark was to the tinder!—how loud that Angel would have had to play! For Ruth Thrale might easily have chanced to say:—"Yes, the same that my mother's was." And that past tense might have spoken a volume.

But Destiny was at fault, and the Angel would have had to play pianissimo. Miss Lupin came in, bearing a log that had taken twenty years to grow and one to dry. The glowing embers were getting spent, and the open hearth called for reimbursement. It seemed a shame those sweet fresh lichens should burn; but then, it would never do to let the fire out! Miss Lupin contrived to indicate condescension in her attitude, while dealing with its reconstruction. No conversation could have survived such an inroad, and by the time Miss Lupin had asked if she should remove the tea etceteras, the review of Pomona's family was forgotten, and Destiny was baffled.

Another floating spark went even nearer to the tinder, when, going back to Dave and Dolly, old Maisie talked of the pleasure of having the little girl at home, now that Dave was so much away at school. She was getting dim in thought and irresponsible when she gave Widow Thrale this chance insight into her early days. It was a sort of slip of the mind that betrayed her into saying:—"Ah, my dear, the little one makes me think of my own little child I left behind me, that died—oh, such a many years ago!..." Her voice broke into such audible distress that her hearer could not pry behind her meaning; could only murmur a sympathetic nothing. The old lady's words that followed seemed to revoke her lapse:—"Long and long ago, before ever you were born, I should say. But she was my only little girl, and I keep her in mind, even now." Had not Widow Thrale hesitated, it might have come out that her mother had fled from her at the very time, and that her own name was Ruth. How could suspicion have passed tiptoe over such a running stream of possible surmise, and landed dryfoot?

But nothing came of it. There was nothing in a child that died before she was born, to provoke comparison of her own dim impressions of her mother's departure—for old Phoebe had kept much of the tale in abeyance—and her comments hung fire in a sympathetic murmur. She felt, though, that the way she had appeased her thirst for infancy might be told, appropriately; dwelling particularly on the pleasures of nourishing convalescents up to kissing-point, as the ogress we have compared her to might have done up to readiness for the table. Old Maisie was quite ready to endorse all her views and experiences, enjoying especially the account of Dave's rapid recovery, and his neglected Ariadne.

A conclusive sound crept into the conversation of Mrs. Solmes and the housekeeper, always audible without. "I think I hear my Cousin Keziah going," said Mrs. Thrale. "I must not keep her."

"Thank you, my dear! I mean—thank you for coming to see me!" It was the second time old Maisie had said "my dear" to this acquaintance of an hour. But then, her face, that youth's comeliness still clung to, invited it.

"'Tis I should be the one to thank, ma'am, both for the pleasure, and for the hearing tell of little Davy. Mother will be very content to get a little news of the child. Oh, I can tell you she grudges her share of Dave to anyone! If mother should take it into her head to come over and hear some more, for herself, you will not take it amiss? It will be for love of the child." Then, as a correction to what might have seemed a stint of courtesy:—"And for the pleasure of a visit to you, ma'am." Said old Maisie absently:—"I hope she will." And then Widow Thrale saw that all this talking had been quite enough, and took her leave.

This was the second time these two had parted, in half a century. They shook hands, this time, and there was no glimmer in the mind of either, of who or what the other was. Each remained as unconscious of the other's identity as that sleeping child in her crib had been, fifty years ago, of her mother's heart-broken beauty as she tore herself away, with the kiss on her lips that dwelt there still.

They shook hands, with affectionate cordiality, and the old lady, hoping again that the visitor's "mother" would pay her a visit, settled back to watching the fire creep along the lichens, one by one, on that beechen log the squirrels had to themselves a year ago.

Unconscious Widow Thrale had much to say of the pretty old lady as she and Mrs. Solmes walked back to the Ranger's Cottage through the nightfall. Fancy mother taking it into her head that Dave would be the worse by such a nice old extra Granny as that! She must be very much alone in the world though, to judge by what little she had told of her life in Sapps Court. No single hint of kith and kin! Had Keziah not heard a word about her antecedents? Well—nothing to ma'ak a stowery on't! Housekeeper Masham had expressed herself ambiguously, saying that her yoong la'adyship had lighted down upon the old lady in stra'ange coompany; concerning which she, Masham, not being called upon to deliver judgment, preferred to keep her mowuth shoot. Keziah contrived to convey that this shutting of Mrs. Masham's mouth had carried all the weight of speech, all tending to throw doubt on Mrs. Picture, without any clue to the special causes of offence against her.

Whatever misgivings about the old lady Widow Thrale allowed to re-enter her mind were dispersed on arriving at the Cottage. For Toby and Seth, being sought for to wash themselves and have their suppers, were not forthcoming. They had vanished. They were found in the Verderer's Hall, where they had concealed themselves with ingenuity, unnoticed by old Stephen, whom they had followed in and allowed to depart, locking the door after him and so locking them in. It was sheer original sin on their part—the corruption of Man's heart. The joy of occasioning so much anxiety more than compensated for delayed supper; and penalties lapsed, owing to the satisfaction of finding that they had not both tumbled into a well two hundred feet deep. Old Stephen's remark that, had he been guilty of such conduct in his early youth, he would have been all over wales, had an historical interest, but nothing further. They seemed flattered by his opinion that they were a promussin' yoong couple. However, the turmoil they created drove the previous events of the day out of Widow Thrale's head. She slept very sound and—forgot all about her interview with the old visitor at the Towers!

* * * * *

Old Maisie, alone in Francis Quarles as she had been so often in the garret at Sapps Court, became again the mere silver-headed relic of the past, waiting patiently, one would have said, for Death; content to live, content to die; ready to love still; not strong enough to hate, and ill-provided with an object now. Not for the former—no, indeed! Were there not her Dave and her Dolly to go back to? She had not lost them much, for they, too, were away from poor, half-ruined Sapps Court. She would go back soon. But then, how about her Guardian Angel? She would lose her—must lose her, some time! Why not now?

What had she, old Maisie, done to deserve such a guardianship?—friendship was hardly the word to use. An overpresumption in one so humble! Who could have foreseen all this bewilderment of Chance six weeks ago, when her great event of the day was a visit of the two children. She resented a half-thought she could not help, that called her gain in question. Was not Sapps Court her proper place? Was she not too much out of keeping with her surroundings? Could she even find comfort, when she returned to her old quarters, in wearing these clothes her young ladyship had had made for her; so unlike her own old wardrobe, scarcely a rag of it newer than Skillicks? She fought against the ungenerous thought—the malice of some passing imp, surely!—and welcomed another that had strength to banish it, the image of her visitor of to-day.

There she was again—at least, all that memory supplied! What was her dress? Old Maisie could not recall this. The image supplied a greeny-blue sort of plaid, but memory wavered over that. Her testimony was clear about the hair; plenty of it, packed close with a ripple on the suspicion of grey over the forehead, that seemed to have halted there, unconfirmed. At any rate, there would be no more inside those knot-twists behind, that still showed an autumnal golden brown, Pomona-like. Yes, she had had abundance in the summer of her life, and that was not so long ago. How old was she?—old Maisie asked herself. Scarcely fifty yet, seemed a reasonable answer. She had forgotten to ask her christened name, but she could make a guess at it—could fit her with one to her liking. Margaret—Mary?—No, not exactly. Try Bertha.... Yes—Bertha might do.... But she could think about her so much better in the half-dark. She rose and blew the candles out, then went back to her chair and the line of thought that had pleased her.

How fortunate this good woman had been to hit upon the convalescent idea! She, herself, when her worst loneliness clouded her horizon, might have devised some such modus vivendi—as between herself and her enemy, Solitude; not as mere means to live. But, indeed, Solitude had intruded upon her first, disguised as a friend. The irksomeness of life had come upon her later, when the sting of her son's wickedness began to die away. Moreover, her delicacy of health had disqualified her for active responsibilities. This Mrs. Marrable's antecedents had made no inroads on her constitution, evidently.

See where the fire had crept over these lichens and devoured them! The log would soon be black, when once the heat got a fair hold of it. Now, the pent-up steam from some secret core, that had kept its moisture through the warmth of a summer, hissed out in an angry jet, stung by the conquering flame. There, see!—from some concealment in the bark, mysteriously safe till now, a six-legged beetle, panic-struck and doomed. Cosmic fires were at work upon his world—that world he thought so safe! It was the end of the Universe for him—his Universe! Old Maisie would gladly have played the part of a merciful Divinity, and worked a miraculous salvation. But alas!—the poor little fugitive was too swift to his own combustion in the deadly fires below. Would it be like that for us, when our world comes to an end? Old Maisie was sorry for that little beetle, and would have liked to save him.

She sat on, watching the tongues of flame creep up and up on the log that seemed to defy ignition. The little beetle's fate had taken her mind off her retrospect; off Dave and Dolly, and the pleasant image of Pomona. She was glad of any sign of life, and the voices that reached her from the kitchen or the servants' hall were welcome; and perhaps ... perhaps they were not quarrelling. But appearances were against them. Nevertheless, the lull that followed made her sorry for the silence. A wrangle toned down by distance and intervening doors is soothingly suggestive of company—soothingly, because it fosters the distant hearer's satisfaction at not being concerned in it. Old Maisie hoped they would go on again soon, because she had blown those lights out rashly, without being sure she could relight them. She could tear a piece off the newspaper and light it at the fire of course. But—the idea of tearing a newspaper! This, you see, was in fifty-four, and tearing a number of the Times was like tearing a book. No spills offered themselves. She made an excursion into her bedroom for the matchbox and felt her way to it. But it was empty! The futility of an empty matchbox is as the effrontery of the celebrated misplaced milestone. Expeditions for scraps of waste-paper in the dark, with her eyesight, might end in burning somebody's will, or a cheque for pounds. That was her feeling, at least. Never mind!—she could wait. She had been told always to ring the bell when she wanted anything, but she had never presumed on the permission. A lordly act, not for a denizen of Sapps Court! Roxalana or Dejanira might pull bells. Very likely the log would blaze directly, and she would come on a scrap of real waste-paper.

Stop!... Was not that someone coming along the passage, from the kitchen. Perhaps someone she could ask? She would not go back to her chair till she heard who it was. She set the door "on the jar" timidly, and listened. Yes—she knew the voices. It was Miss Lutwyche and one of the housemaids. Not Lupin—the other one, Mary Anne, who seldom came this way, and whom she hardly knew by sight. But what was it that they were saying?

Said Miss Lutwyche:—"Well, I call her a plaguy old cat.... No, I don't care if she does hear me." However, she lowered her voice to finish her speech, and much that followed was inaudible to old Maisie. Who of course supposed she was the plaguy old cat!

Then Mary Anne became audible again, confirming this view:—"Is that her room?" For the subject of the conversation had changed in that inaudible phase—changed from Mrs. Masham to the queer old soul her young ladyship had pitchforked down in the middle of the household.

"That's her room now. Old Mashey has been turned out. She's next door. She's supposed to look after her and see she wants for nothing.... I don't know. Perhaps she does. I wash my hands." At this point the poor old listener heard no more. What she had heard was a great shock to her; really almost as great a shock as the crash at Sapps Court. She found her way back to her chair and sat and cried, in the darkened room. She was a plaguy old cat, and Miss Lutwyche, with whom she had been on very good terms in Cavendish Square, had washed her hands of her! Then, when the servants here were attentive to her—and they were all right, as far as that went—it was mere deceptiousness, and they were wishing her at Jericho.

She was conscious that the lady's-maid and Mary Anne came back, still talking. But she had closed the door, and was glad she could not hear what they were saying. A few minutes after, Mrs. Masham appeared from her own room close by, having apparently recovered her temper. But, said old Maisie to herself, all this was sheer hypocrisy; a mere timeserver's assumption of civility towards a plaguy old cat!

"You'll be feeling ready for your bit of supper, Mrs. Pilcher," said the housekeeper; who, having been snubbed by Miss Lutwyche for saying "Pilchard," had made compromise. She could not be expected to accept "Picture." The bit of supper was behind her on a tray, borne by Lupin. "Why—you're all in the dark!" She rebuked the servant-girl because there were no matches, and on production of a box from the latter's pocket, magnanimously lit the candles with her own hands, continuing the while to reproach her subordinate for neglect of the guest entrusted to her charge. That guest's thought being, meanwhile, what a shocking hypocrite this woman was. Probably Mrs. Masham was no more a hypocrite than old Maisie was an old cat. That is to say, if the latter designation meant a termagant or scold. There must be now and again, in Nature, a person without a hall-mark of either Heaven or Hell, and Mrs. Masham may have had none. In that recent encounter in the kitchen which old Maisie had been conscious of, she had lost her temper with Miss Lutwyche; but so might anyone, if you came to that. Cook had come to that, after Miss Lutwyche left the room, and her designation of that young lady as a provocation, and a hussy, had done much to pacify Mrs. Masham.

Anyhow, Mrs. Masham was on even terms with herself, if not in a treacle-jar, when she sat down by the fire to do—as she thought—her duty by her young ladyship's protegee. She was that taken up, she said, every minute of the day, that she did not get the opportunities her heart longed for of cultivating the acquaintance of her guest. But she was thankful to hear that Mrs. Pilcher had not been any the worse for her talk with her visitor an hour since. Widow Thrale, living like she did over at Chorlton, was a sort of stranger at the Towers. But only a subacute stranger, as her husband, when living, was frequently in evidence there, in connection with the stables.

Old Maisie was interested to hear anything about her pleasant visitor. What sort of aged woman did Mrs. Masham take her to be? Her voice, said the old lady, was that of a much younger person than she seemed, to look at.

"How old would she be?" said the housekeeper. "Well—she might be a child of twelve or thirteen when her mother came to Strides Cottage, and married Farmer Marrable there...."

"Then her name was never Marrable at all," said old Maisie.

"No. Granny Marrable, she'd been married before, in Sussex. Now what was her first husband's name?... Well—I ought to be able to recollect that! Ruth—Ruth—Ruth what?" She was trying to remember the name by which she had known Widow Thrale in her childhood. Her effort to do so, had it succeeded, would have made a complete disclosure almost inevitable, owing to the peculiarity of Granny Marrable's first husband's name. "I ought to be able to recollect, but there!—I can't. I suppose it would be because we always heard her spoken of as Mrs. Marrable's Ruth. I saw but very little of her; only when I was a child...." She paused a moment, arrested by old Maisie's expression, and then said:—"Yes ... why?" ... and stopped.

"Because if I had known she was Ruth I would have told her that my little girl that died was Ruth. Just a fanciful idea!" But the speaker's supper was getting cold. The housekeeper departed, telling Lupin to get some scrapwood to make a blaze under that log, and make it show what a real capacity it had as fuel, if only justice was done to its combustibility.

This chance passage of conversation between old Maisie and the housekeeper ran near to sounding the one note needed to force the truth of an incredible tale on the blank unsuspicion of its actors. A many other little things may have gone as near. If so, none left any one of its audience, or witnesses, more absolutely in the dark about it than the solitary old woman who that evening watched that log, stimulated by the scrapwood during her very perfunctory supper; first till it became a roaring flame that laughed at those two candles, then till the flame died down and left it all aglow; then till the fire reached its heart and broke it, and it fell, and flickered up again and died, and slowly resolved itself into a hillock of red ember and creeping incandescence, a treasury still of memories of the woodlands and the coming of the spring, and the growth of the leaves that perished.

At about nine o'clock, Lupin, acting officially, came to offer her services to see the old lady to bed. No!—if she might do so she would rather sit up till her ladyship came in. She could shift for herself; in fact, like most old people who have never been waited on, she greatly preferred it. Only, of course, she did not say so. But Lupin was sitting up for her ladyship, with Miss Lutwyche, and would purvey hot water then, in place of this, which would be cold. She brought a couple of young loglets to keep a little life in the fire, and went away to contribute to an everlasting wrangle in the servants' hall.

The wind roared in the chimney and made old Maisie's thoughts go back to the awful sea. Think of the wrecks this wind would cause! Of course she was all wrong; one always is, indoors, with a huge chimney which is a treasure-house of sound. Gwen was just saying at that moment, to Adrian and his sister, what a delicious night it was to be out of doors! And the grey mare, in a hurry to go, was undertaking through an interpreter to be back in an hour and three-quarters easy. And then they were off, Gwen laughing to scorn Irene's reproaches to her for not staying the night. All that was part of Gwen's minimisation of her guilt in this postponement of the separation test. The stars seemed to flash the clearer in the heavens for such laughter as hers, in such a voice. But all the while old Maisie was haunted with images of a chaise blown into ditches and over bridges, and colliding with blown-down elms, in league for mischief with blown-out lamps. Be advised, and never fidget about the absent!

She would rather have gone on doing so than that the recollection should come back to her of Lutwyche's odious designation that she had taken to herself, so warrantably to all appearance. A plaguy old cat! What had she ever done or said to Miss Lutwyche, or any of them, to deserve such a name? And then that girl who was with her had seemed to accept it so easily—certainly without any protest. She was ready to admit, though, that her vituperators had concealed their animus well, the hypocrites that they were! Look how amiable Mrs. Masham had made believe to be, an hour ago! A shade of graciousness—an infinitesimal condescension—certainly nothing worse than that! But the hypocrisy of it! She had never been quite comfortable in her ill-assigned position of guest undefined—dear, beautiful Gwen's fault! Never, since the housekeeper on first introduction had jumped at her reluctance to taint the servants' hall with Sapps Court, interpreting it as a personal desire to be alone. But she had never suspected that she was a plaguy old cat, and did not feel like her idea of one.

Conceive the position of a lonely octogenarian, injudiciously thrust into a community where she was not welcome—by a Guardian Angel surely, but one who had never known the meaning of the word "obstacle." Conceive that her poverty had never meant pauperisation, and that graciousness and condescension are always tainted with benevolence, to the indigent. She had done nothing to deserve having anything bestowed on her, and the wing of a chicken she had supped upon would have stuck in her throat with that qualification. Understand, too, that when this thought crossed her mind, she recoiled from it and cried out upon her petty pride that would call anything in question that had been vise and endorsed by that dear Guardian Angel. Use these helps towards a glimpse into her heart as she watched the new wood go the way of the old, and say if you wonder that she cried silently over it. Now if only that nice person that came to-day could have stayed on, to pass the time with her until the welcome sound should come of the chaise's homeward wheels and the grey mare's splendid pace, bringing her what she knew would come if Gwen was in it, a happy farewell interview with her idol before she went to bed. Yes—how nice it would have been to have her here! Ruth Thrale—yes, Ruth—her own little daughter's name of long ago!

This Ruth was her own daughter. But how to know it!



CHAPTER VII

HOW GWEN CAME BACK, AND FOUND THE "OLD CAT" ASLEEP. AND TOOK OFF HER SABLES. A CANDLE-LIGHT JOURNEY THROUGH AN ANCIENT HOUSE, AND A TELEGRAPHIC SUMMONS. HOW GWEN RUSHED AWAY BY A NIGHT-TRAIN, BECAUSE HER COUSIN CLOTILDA SAID DON'T COME. HOW SHE LEFT A LETTER FOR WIDOW THRALE AT THE RANGER'S LODGE

Just as the watched pot never boils, so the thing one waits for never comes, so long as one waits hard. The harder one waits the longer it is postponed. When one sits up to open the door to the latchkeyless, there is only one sure way of bringing about his return, and that is to drop asleep a contre coeur, and sleep too sound for furious knocks and rings, gravel thrown at windows, and intemperate language, to arouse you. Then he will come back, and be obliged to say he has only knocked once, and you will say you had only just closed your eyes.

Old Maisie was quite sure she had just closed hers, when of a sudden the voice she longed for filled Heaven and Earth, and said:—"Oh, what a shame to come and wake you out of such a beautiful sleep! But you mustn't sleep all night in the arm-chair. Poor dear old Mrs. Picture! What would Dave say! What would Mrs. Burr say!" And then old Maisie waked from a dream about unmanageable shrimps, to utter the correct formula with a conviction of its truth, this time. She had only just closed her eyes. Only just!

Miss Lutwyche, in attendance, ventured on sympathetic familiarity. Mrs. Picture would not get any beauty-sleep to-night, that was certain. For it is well known that only sleep in bed deserves the name, and a clock was putting its convictions about midnight on record, dogmatically.

Gwen's laugh rang out soon enough to quash its last ipse dixits. "Then the mischief's done, Lutwyche, and another five minutes doesn't matter. Mrs. Picture's going to tell me all her news. Here—get this thing off! Then you can go till I ring." The thing, or most of it, was an unanswerable challenge to the coldest wind of night—the cast-off raiment of full fifty little sables, that scoured the Russian woods in times gone by. Surely the breezes had drenched it with the very soul of the night air in that ride beneath the stars, and the foam of them was shaken out of it as it released its owner.

Then old Maisie was fully aware of her Guardian Angel, back again—no dream, like those shrimps! And her voice was saying:—"So you had company, Mrs. Picture dear. Lutwyche told me. The widow-woman from Chorlton, wasn't it? How did you find her? Nice?"

Yes, the widow-woman was very nice. She had stayed quite a long time, and had tea. "I liked her very much," said old Maisie. "She was easy." Then—said inference—somebody is difficult. Maisie did not catch this remark, made by one of the most inaudible of speakers. "Yes," she said, "she stayed quite a long time, and had tea. She is a very good young woman"—for, naturally, eighty sees fifty-odd as youth, especially when fifty-odd seems ten years less—"and we could talk about Dave. It was like being home again." She used, without a trace of arriere pensee, a phrase she could not have bettered had she tried to convey to Gwen her distress at hearing she was a plaguy old cat. Then she suddenly saw its possible import, and would have liked to withdraw it. "Only I would not seek to be home again, my dear, when I am near you." She trembled in her eagerness to get this said, and not to say it wrong.

Gwen saw in an instant all she had overlooked, and indeed she had overlooked many things. It was, however, much too late at night to go into the subject. She could only soothe it away now, but with intention to amend matters next day; or, rather, next daylight. So she said:—"The plaster will very soon be dry now in Sapps Court, dear Mrs. Picture, and then you shall go back to Dave and Dolly, and I will come and see you there. You must go to bed now. So must I—I suppose? I will come to you to-morrow morning, and you will tell me a great deal more. Now good-night!" That was what she said aloud. To herself she thought a thought without words, that could only have been rendered, to do it justice:—"The Devil fly away with Mrs. Masham, that she couldn't contrive to make this dear old soul comfortable for a few weeks, just long enough for some plaster to dry." She went near adding:—"And myself, too, not to have foreseen what would happen!" But she bit this into her underlip, and cancelled it.

She rang the bell for Lutwyche, now the sole survivor in the kitchen region. Who appeared, bearing hot water—some for the plaguy old cat. Gwen said good-night again, kissing the old lady affectionately when Lutwyche was not looking. Mistress and maid then, when the cat at her own request was left to get herself into sleeping trim, started on the long journey through corridors and state-rooms through which her young ladyship's own quarters had to be reached. Corridors on whose floors one walked up and down hill; great chambers full of memories, and here and there indulging in a ghost. Tudor rooms with Holbeins between the windows, invisible to man; Jacobean rooms with Van Dycks, nearly as regrettably invisible; Lelys and Knellers, much more regrettably visible. Across the landing the great staircase, where the Reynolds hangs, which your cicerone of this twentieth century will tell you was the famous beauty of her time, and the grandmother of another famous Victorian beauty, dead not a decade since. And on this staircase Gwen, half pausing to glance at her departed prototype, started suddenly, and exclaimed:—"What's that?"

For a bell had broken the silence of the night—a bell that had enjoyed doing so, and was slow to stop. Now a bell after midnight in a house that stands alone in a great Park, two miles from the nearest village, has to be accounted for, somehow. Not by Miss Lutwyche, who merely noted that the household would hear and answer the summons.

Her young ladyship was not so indifferent to human affairs as her attendant. She said:—"I must know what that is. They won't send to tell me. Come back!" She had said it, and started, before that bell gave in and retired from public life.

Past the Knellers and Lelys, among the Van Dycks, a scared figure, bearing a missive. Miss Lupin, and no ghost—as she might have been—in the farther door as her ladyship passes into the room. She has run quickly with it, and is out of breath. "A telegraph for your ladyship!" is all she can manage. She would have said "telegram" a few years later.

A rapid vision, in Gwen's mind, of her father's remains, crushed by a locomotive, itself pulverised by another—for these days were rich in railway accidents—then a hope! It may be the fall of Sebastopol; a military cousin had promised she should know it as soon as the Queen. Give her the paper and end the doubt!... It is neither.

It is serious, for all that. Who brought this?—that's the first question, from Gwen. Lupin gives a hurried account. It is Mr. Sandys, the station-master at Grantley Thorpe, who has galloped over himself to make sure of delivery. Is he gone? No—he has taken his horse round to Archibald at the Stables to refit for a quieter ride back. Very well. Gwen must see him, and Tom Kettering must be stopped going to bed, and must be ready to drive her over to Grantley, if there is still a chance to catch the up-train for Euston. Lutwyche may get things ready at once, on the chance, and not lose a minute. Lupin is off, hotfoot, to the Stables, to catch Mr. Sandys, and bring him round.

White and determined, after reading the message, Gwen retraces her steps. Outside old Mrs. Picture's door comes a moment of irresolution, but she quashes it and goes on. Old Maisie is not in bed yet—has not really left that tempting fireside. She becomes conscious of a stir in the house, following on a bell that she had supposed to be only a belated absentee. She opens her door furtively and listens.

That is Gwen's voice surely, beyond the servants' quarter, speaking with a respectful man. The scraps of speech that reach the listener's ear go to show that he assents to do something out of the common, to oblige her ladyship. Something is to happen at three-fifteen, which he will abet, and be responsible for. Only it must be three-fifteen sharp, because something—probably a train—is liable to punctuality.

Then a sound of an interview wound up, a completed compact. And that is Gwen, returning. Old Maisie will not intrude on the event, whatever it be. She must wait to hear to-morrow. So she closes her door, furtively, as she opened it; and listens still, for the silences of the night to reassert themselves. No more words are audible, but she is conscious that voices continue, and that her Guardian Angel's is one. Then footsteps, and a hand on the door. Then Gwen, white and determined still, but speaking gently, to forestall alarm, and reassure misgiving.

"Dear Mrs. Picture, it's nothing—nothing to be alarmed about. But I have to go up to London by the night train. See!—I will tell you what it is. I have had this telegraphic message. Is it not wonderful that this should be sent from London, a hundred miles off, two hours ago, and that I should have it here to read now? It is from my cousin, Miss Grahame. I am afraid she is dangerously ill, and I must go to her because she is alone.... Yes—Maggie is very good, and so is Dr. Dalrymple. But some friend should be with her or near her. So I must go." She did not read the message, or show it.

"But my dear—my dear—is it right for you to go alone, in the dark.... Oh, if I were only young!..."

"I shall be all right. I shall have Lutwyche, you know. Don't trouble about me. It is you I am thinking of—leaving you here. I am afraid I may be away some days, and you may not be comfortable.... No—I can't possibly take you with me. I have to get ready to go at once. The trap will only just take me and Lutwyche, and our boxes. It must be Tom Kettering and the trap. The carriage could not do it in the time. The Scotch express passes Grantley Thorpe at three-fifteen—the station-master can stop it for me.... What!—go beside the driver! Dear old Mrs. Picture, the boxes have to go beside the driver, and Lutwyche and I have to hold tight behind.... No, no!—you must stay here a day or two—at least till we know the plaster's dry in Sapps Court. As soon as I have been to see myself, one of the maids shall bring you back, and you shall have Dave and Dolly—there! Now go to bed, that's an old dear, and don't fret about me. I shall be all right. Now, go I must! Good-bye!" She was hurrying from the room, leaving the old lady in a great bewilderment, when she paused a moment to say:—"Stop a minute!—I've an idea.... No, I haven't.... Yes, I have.... All right!—nothing—never mind!" Then she was gone, and old Maisie felt dreadfully alone.

Arrived in her own room, where Lutwyche, rather gratified with her own importance in this new freak of Circumstance, was endeavouring to make a portmanteau hold double its contents, Gwen immediately sat down to write a letter. It required five minutes for thought and eight minutes to write; so that in thirteen minutes it was ready for its envelope. Gwen re-read it, considered it, crossed a t and dotted an i, folded it, directed it, took it out to re-re-read, said thoughtfully:—"Can't do any possible harm," concluded it past recall, and added "By bearer" on the outside. It ran thus:

"WIDOW THRALE,

"I want you to do something for me, and I know you will do it. To-morrow morning go to my old Mrs. Picture whom you saw to-day, and make her go back with you and your boy to Strides Cottage, and keep her there and take great care of her, till you hear from me. She is a dear old thing and will give no trouble at all. Ask anyone for anything you want for her—money or things—and I will settle all the bills. Show this letter. She knows my address in London. I am going there by the night express.

"GWENDOLEN RIVERS."

She slipped this letter into her pocket, and made a descent on Miss Lutwyche for her packing, which she criticized severely. But packing, unlike controversy, always ends; and in less than half an hour, both were in their places behind Tom Kettering and the grey mare, who had accepted the prospect of another fifteen miles without emotion; and Mrs. Masham and Lupin were watching them off, and thinking how nice it would be when they could get to bed.

"Now you think the mare can do it, Tom Kettering?"

"Twice and again, my lady, and a little over. And never be any the worse to-morrow!" Thus Tom Kettering, with immovable confidence. The mare as good as endorsed his words, swinging her head round to see, and striking the crust of the earth a heavy blow with her off hind-hoof.

"And we shall have time for you to get down at your Aunt Solmes's to leave my letter?"

"I count upon it, my lady, quite easy. We'll be at the Thorpe by three, all told, without stepping out." And then the mare is on the road again, doing her forty-first mile, quite happily.

They stopped at the bridle-path to the Ranger's Cottage, and Tom walked across with the letter—an unearthly hour for a visit!—and came back within ten minutes. All right! Her ladyship's wishes should be attended to! Then on through the starlight night, with the cold crisp air growing colder and crisper towards morning. Then the railway-station where Feudal tradition could still stop a train by signal, but only one or two in the day ever stopped of their own accord, in the fifties. Now, as you know, every train stops, and Spiers and Pond are there, and you can lunch and have Bovril and Oxo. Then, the shoddy-mills were undreamed of, where your old clothes are carefully sterilised before they are turned into new wool; and the small-arms factory, where Cain buys an outfit cheap; and the colour-works, that makes aniline dyes that last, if you settle monthly, until you pay for them. Nothing was there then, and the train that stopped by signal came through a smokeless night, with red eyes and green that gazed up or down the line to please the Company; and started surlily, in protest at the stoppage, but picked its spirits slowly up, and got quite exhilarated before it was out of hearing, perhaps because it was carrying Gwen to London.

The dejection of its first start might have persevered and made its full-fledged rapidity joyless, had it known the errand of its beautiful first-class passenger. For the telegram Gwen had received, that had sent her off on this wild journey to London in the small hours of the morning, was this that follows, neither more nor less:

"On no account come. Why run risks? You will not be admitted. Never mind what Dr. Dalrymple says.—CLOTILDA."

Just conceive this young lady off in such a mad way when it was perfectly clear what had happened! She might at least have waited until she received the letter this message had so manifestly outraced; Dr. Dalrymple's letter, certain to come by the first post in the morning. And she would have waited, no doubt, if she had not been Gwen. Being Gwen, her first instinct was to get away before that letter came, enjoining caution, and deprecating panic, and laying stress on this, that, and the other—a parcel of nonsense all with one object, to counsel pusillanimousness, to inspire trepidation. She knew that would be the upshot. She knew also that Dr. Dalrymple would play double, frightening her from coming, while assuring the patient that he had vouched for the entire absence of danger and the mildness of the type of the disorder, whatever it was. It would never do for Clotilda to know that she—Gwen—was being kept away, for safety's sake. That was the sum and substance of her reflections. And the inference was clear:—Push her way on to Cavendish Square, and push her way in, if necessary!

A thought crossed her mind as the train whirled away from Grantley Station. Suppose it was smallpox, and she should catch it and have her beauty spoiled! Well—in that case an ill wind would blow somebody good! Her darling blind man would never see it. Let us be grateful for middle-sized mercies!



CHAPTER VIII

HOW THAT WIDOW GOT THE "OLD CAT" AWAY TO STRIDES COTTAGE. MR. BRANTOCK'S HORSE. ELIZABETH-NEXT-DOOR, AND THE BIT OF FIRE SHE MADE. HOW TOFT THE GIPSY SPOTTED A LIKENESS, AND REPAIRED THE GLASS TOBY HAD AIMED AT. HOW OLD MAISIE'S ACQUAINTANCE WITH HER DAUGHTER GREW TO FRIENDSHIP. AND HER DAUGHTER SHOWED HER GRANDFATHER'S MILL. HOW COULD THIS MILL BE YOUR GRANDFATHER'S, WHEN IT WAS MY FATHER'S? BUT SEE HOW SMALL IT WAS! TWO ARMS LONG, FIFTY YEARS AGO! AND NOW!... A RESTLESS WAKING AND A DARING EXCURSION. ONLY THE HOUSE-DOG ABOUT! ON THE FENDER! SEE THERE—AN ARM AND A HALF LONG ONLY—IN FACT, LESS!

Old Maisie waked late, and no wonder! Or, more properly, she slept late, and had to be waked. Mrs. Masham did it, saying at the same time to a person in her company:—"Oh no, Mrs. Thrale—she's all right!—we've no call to be frightened yet a while." She added, as signs of life began to return:—"She'll be talking directly, you'll see."

Then the sleeper became conscious, and roused herself, to the point of exclaiming:—"Oh dear, what is it?" A second effort made her aware that her agreeable visitor of yesterday was at her bed's foot, and that her awakener was saying at her side:—"Now you tell her. She'll hear you now." Mrs. Masham seemed to assume official rights as a go-between, with special powers of interpretation.

Widow Thrale looked more Pomona-like than ever in the bright sunshine that was just getting the better of the hoar-frost. She held in her hand a letter, to which she seemed to cling as a credential—a sort of letter of marque, so to speak. "'Tis a bidding from her young ladyship," said the interpreter collaterally. She herself said, in the soothing voice of yesterday:—"From her young ladyship, who has gone to away London unforetold, last night. She will have me get you to my mother's, to make a stay with us for a while. And my mother will make you kindly welcome, for the little boy Dave's sake, and for her ladyship's satisfaction." She read the letter of marque, as far as "take great care of her, till you hear from me."

"I will get up and go," said the old lady. Then she appeared disconcerted at her own alacrity, saying to the housekeeper:—"But you have been so kind to me!"

"What her young ladyship decides," said Mrs. Masham, "it is for us to abide by." She referred to this as a sort of superseding truth, to which all personal feelings—gratitude, ingratitude, resentment, forgiveness—should be subordinated. It left open a claim to magnanimity, on her part, somehow. Further, she said she would tell Lupin to bring some breakfast for Mrs. Pilcher.

The task of getting the old lady up to take it seemed to devolve naturally on Widow Thrale, who accepted it discreetly and skilfully, explaining that Mr. Brantock's cart would wait an hour to oblige, and would go very easy along the road, not to shake. Old Maisie did not seem alarmed, on that score.

She had lain awake in the night in some terror of the day to come, alone with a household which appeared to have decided, though without open declaration, that she was a plaguy old cat. She had been roused from a final deep sleep to find that her Guardian Angel's last benediction to her had been to make the very arrangement she would have chosen for herself had she been put to it to make choice. That her mind had never mooted the point was a detail, which retrospect corrected. She was ashamed to find she was so glad to fly from Mrs. Masham and Company, and already began to be uneasy lest she had misjudged them. But then—a plaguy old cat!

However, the decision of this at present did not arise from the circumstances. What did was that, in less than the hour Mr. Brantock's cart could concede, she was seated therein, comfortably wrapped up, beside this really very nice and congenial saddler's relict, having been somehow dressed, breakfasted, and generally adjusted by hands which no doubt had acquired the sort of skill a hospital nurse gets—without the trenchant official demeanour which makes the patient shake in his shoes, if any—by her considerable experience of convalescents of all sorts and the smaller sizes.

Mr. Brantock's cart jogged steadily on by cross-cuts and by-roads at the dictation of parcels whose destinations Mr. Brantock's horse bore in mind, and chose the nearest way to, allowing his so-called driver to deliver them on condition that the consignees paid cash. His harness stood in the way of his doing so himself. Think what it was that was concealed from old Maisie and Widow Thrale respectively, as they travelled in Mr. Brantock's cart. The intensity of this mother's and daughter's ignorance of one another outwent the powers of mere language to tell.

To the mother the daughter was the very nice young—relatively young—woman who had taken such good care of Dave last year, who was now so very kind and civil as to take charge of an old encumbrance at the bidding of a glorious Guardian Angel, who had dawned on these last days suddenly, inexplicably! An encumbrance at least, and no doubt plaguy, or she never would have been called an old cat.

To the daughter the mother was a good old soul, to be made much of and fostered; nursed if ill, entertained if well; borne with if, as might be, she developed into a trial—turned peevish, irritable, what not! Had not Gwen o' the Towers spoken, and was not the taint of Feudalism still strong in Rocestershire half a century back? Gwen o' the Towers had spoken, and that ended the matter.

Otherwise they were no more conscious of each other's blood in their own veins than was the convalescent Toby, who enlivened the dulness of the journey by dwelling on the menus he preferred for breakfast, dinner, and supper respectively. He elicited information about Dave, and was anxious to be informed which would lick. He put the question in this ungarnished form, not supplying detailed conditions. When told that Dave would, certainly, being nearly two years older, he threw doubt on the good faith of his informant.

But the journey came to an end, and though Widow Thrale had locked up the Cottage when she came away yesterday, she had left the key with Elizabeth-next-door—whoever she was; it does not matter—asking her to look in about eleven and light a bit of fire against her, Widow Thrale's, return. So next-door was applied to for the key, and the bit of fire—a very large bit of a small fire, or a small bit of a very large one—was found blazing on the hearth, and the cloth laid for dinner and everything.

According to Elizabeth-next-door, absolutely nothing had happened since Mrs. Marrable went away yesterday. Routine does not happen; it flows in a steady current which Event, the fidget, may interrupt for a while, but seldom dams outright. Elizabeth's memory, however, admitted on reconsideration that Toft the glazier had come to see for a job, and that she had sought for broken windows in Strides Cottage and found none. Toft was quite willing to mend any pane on his own responsibility, neither appealing to the County Court to obtain payment, nor smashing the pane in default of a cash settlement; a practice congenial to his gipsy blood, although he was the loser by the price of the glass. Toft had greatly desired to repair the glass front of the little case or cabinet on the mantelshelf, but Elizabeth had not dared to sanction interference with an heirloom. That was quite right, said Widow Thrale. What would mother have said if any harm had been done to her model? Besides, it did not matter! Because Toft would look in again to-day or to-morrow, when he had finished on the conservatories at the Vicarage.

None of this conversation reached old Maisie's ears at the time; only as facts referred to afterwards. As soon as the key was produced by Elizabeth-next-door, the old lady, treated as an invalid in the face of her own remonstrance, was inducted through the big kitchen or sitting-room, which she was sorry not to stop in, to a bedroom beyond, and made to lie down and rest and drink fresh milk. When she got up to join Widow Thrale's and Toby's midday meal, all reference to glass-mending was at an end, and Toby was making such a noise about the relative merits of brown potatoes in their skins, and potatoes per se potatoes, that you could not hear yourself speak.

In spite of her separation from her beautiful new Guardian Angel, and her uneasiness about the nature of that dangerous illness—for were not people dying of cholera every day?—she felt happier at Strides Cottage than in the ancient quarters Francis Quarles had occupied, where her position had been too anomalous to be endurable. Gwen's scheme had been that Mrs. Masham should play the part Widow Thrale seemed to fill so easily. It had failed. The fact is that nothing but sympathy with vulgarity gives what is called tact, and in this case the Guardian Angel's scorn of the stupid reservations and distinctions of the servantry at the Towers had quite prevented her stocking the article.

Perhaps Mrs. Thrale fell so easily into the task of making old Maisie happy and at ease because she was furnished with a means of explaining her and accounting for her, by the popularity Dave Wardle had achieved with the neighbours a year ago. Thus she had said to Elizabeth-next-door:—"You'll call to mind our little Davy Wardle, a twelvemonth back?—he that was nigh to being killed by the fire-engine? Well—there then!—this old soul belongs with him. 'Tis she he called his London Granny, and old Mrs. Picture. I would not speak to her exact name, never having been told it—'tis something like Picture. Her young ladyship at the Towers has given me the charge of her. She's a gentle old soul, and sweet-spoken, to my thinking." So that when Elizabeth-next-door came to converse with old Maisie, they had a topic in common. Dave's blue eyes and courteous demeanour having left a strong impression on next-door, and on all who came within his radius. Perhaps if such a lubricant had existed at the Towers, the social machinery would have worked easier, and heated bearings would have been avoided.

It was the same with one or two others of the neighbours, who really came in to learn something of the aged person with such silvery-white hair, whom Widow Thrale had brought to the Cottage. Little memories of Dave were a passport to her heart. What strikes us, who know the facts, as strange, is that no one of these good women—all familiar with the face of Granny Marrable—were alive to the resemblance between the two sisters. And the more strange, that this likeness was actually detected even in the half-dark, by an incomer much less habituated to her face than many of them.

This casual incomer was Toft, the vagrant glazier, and—so said chance report, lacking confirmation—larcenous vagrant. His Assyrian appearance may have been responsible for this. It gave rise to the belief that he was either Hebrew or Egyptian. And, of course, no Jew or gipsy could be an honest man. That saw itself, in a primitive English village.

Toft had made his appearance at Strides Cottage just after dusk, earnestly entreating to be allowed to replace the glass Toby's chestnut-shot had broken, for nothing—yes, for nothing!—if Widow Thrale was not inclined to go to fourpence for it. The reply was:—"'Tis not the matter of the money, Master Toft. 'Tis because I grudge the touching of a thing my mother sets store by, when she is not here herself to overlook it." Now this was just after old Maisie had quitted the room, to lie down and rest again before supper, having been led into much talk about Dave. Toft had seen her. His answer to Widow Thrale was:—"Will not the old wife come back, if I bide a bit for her coming?" His mistake being explained to him, his comment was:—"Zookers! I'm all in the wrong. But I tell ye true, mistress, I did think her hair was gone white, against what I see on her head three months agone. And I was of the mind she'd fell away a bit." Widow Thrale in the end consented to allow the damage to be made good, she herself carefully removing the precious treasure from its case, and locking it into a cupboard while Toft replaced the broken glass. This done, under her unflagging supervision, the model was replaced; fourpence changed hands, and the glazier went his way, saying, as he made his exit:—"That was a chouse, mistress."

But Toft was the only person who saw the likeness; or, at any rate, who confessed to seeing it. It is, of course, not at loggerheads with human nature, that others saw it too, but kept the discovery to themselves. It was so out of the question that the resemblance should exist, that the fact that it did stood condemned on its merits. Therefore, silence! Another possibility is that the intensely white hair, and the seeming greater age, of old Maisie, had more than their due weight in heading off speculation. Old Phoebe's teeth, too, made a much better show than her sister's.

One thing is certain, that the person most concerned, Ruth Thrale herself, remained absolutely blind to a fact which might have struck her had she not been intensely familiar with her reputed mother's face. The features of every day were things per se, not capable of comparison with casual extramural samples. They never are, within family walls.

That this was no mere inertness of observation, but a good strong opacity of vision, was clear when, after leaving the convalescent Toby to dreams of indulgence in the pleasures of the table, and victorious encounters, she roused her old visitor to bring her into supper.

"There now!—it is strange that I should have company tonight. I never thought to have the luck, yesterday, when you were giving me my tea, Mrs...." She stopped on the name, and supplied a cup thereof—supper was a mixed meal at Strides Cottage—then continued:—"That brings to mind to ask you, whether little Davy is in the right of it when he writes your name 'Picture'?... Is he not, mayhap, calling you out of your name, childlike?"

"But of course he is, bless his little heart! My name is Prichard. P-r-i-c-h—Prich." She spelt the first syllable, to make sure no t got in. "The Lady, Gwen, has taken it of him, to humour him and Dolly, just as their young mouths speak it—Picture! But it isn't Picture; it's Prichard." Old Maisie felt quite mendacious. She seldom had to state so roundly that her assumed name was authentic. Widow Thrale made no comment, only saying:—"I thought the child had made 'Picture' out of his own head." The talk scarcely turned on the name for more than a minute, as she went on to say:—"Now you must eat some supper, Mrs. Prichard, because you hardly took anything for dinner. And see what a ride you had!" She went on to make appeals on behalf of bacon, eggs, bloaters, cold mutton and so on, with only a very small response from the old lady, who seemed to live on nothing. A compromise was effected, the latter promising to take some gruel just before going to bed.

Two influences were at work to keep the antecedents of either out of the conversation. Old Maisie fought shy of inquiries, which might have produced counter-inquiry she could scarcely have met by silence; and Mrs. Thrale shrank, with a true instinctive delicacy, from prying into a record which had the word poverty so legible on its title-page, and signs of a former well-being so visible on its subject. Besides, how about Sapps Court and Dave's uncle, the prizefighter?

She felt curiosity, all the same. However, information might come, unsought, as the ground thawed. A springlike mildness was in the atmosphere of their acquaintance, and it began to tell on the ice, very markedly, as they sat enjoying the firelight; candles blown out, and the flicker of the wood-blaze making sport with visibility on the walls and dresser—on the dominant willow-pattern of the latter, with its occurrences of polished metal, and precious incidents of Worcester or Bristol porcelain; or the pictorial wealth of the former, the portrait of Lord Nelson, and the British Lion, and all the flags of all the world in one frame; to say nothing of some rather woebegone Bible prints, doing full justice to the beards of Susannah's elders, and the biceps of Samson. On all these, and prominently on the sampler worked by Hephzibah Marrable, 1672, a ship-of-war in full sail, with cannons firing off wool in the same direction, and defeating the Dutch Fleet, presumably. Perhaps the Duke of York's flagship.

The two had talked of many things. Of the great bull-dog who was such a safeguard against thieves that they never felt insecure at night, and were very careless in consequence about bolts and bars; and who had investigated the visitor very carefully on her first arrival, suspiciously, but seemed now to have given her his complete sanction. Of the cat on the hearth and the Family at the Towers—small things and large; but with a great satisfaction for old Maisie, when the statement was made with absolute confidence that Mr. Torrens, who was said to be the man of her young ladyship's choice, would recover his eyesight. Mrs. Lamprey's version of Dr. Nash's pronouncement was conclusive, and was conscientiously repeated, without exaggeration; causing heartfelt joy to old Maisie, with a tendency to consider how far Mr. Torrens deserved his good fortune, the moment his image was endowed with eyesight. That, you remember, was the effect of Mrs. Lamprey's first communication yesterday. Then Widow Thrale had read a letter from her son on the Agamemnon, in the Black Sea, cheerfully forecasting an early collapse of Russia before the prowess of the Allies, and an early triumphant return of the Fleet with unlimited prize-money. Old Maisie had to envy perforce this mother's pride in this son, his daring and his chivalry, his invincibility by foes, his generosity to the poor and weak. Her envy was forced from her—how could it have been otherwise?—but her love came with it. All her heart went out to the sweet, proud, contented face as the firelight played on it, and made the treasured letter visible to its reader. Then she had listened to particulars of the other son, in the Baltic, of whom his mother was temperately proud, not rising to her previous enthusiasm. He had, however, been in action; that was his strong point, at present. By that time Mrs. Thrale's domestic record only needed a word or two about her daughter, Mrs. Costrell, to be complete for its purpose, a tentative enlightenment of its hearer, which might induce counter-revelation. But the old lady did not respond, clinging rather to inquiry about her informant's affairs. For which the latter did not blame her, for who could say what reasons she might have for her reticence. At any rate, she would not try to break through it.

All this talk, by the comfortable fireside, was nourishment to the growing germ of old Maisie's affection for this chance acquaintance of a day. Her faith in all her surroundings—her Guardian Angel apart—had been sadly shaken by the expression "plaguy old cat." This woman could be relied upon, she was sure. She could not be disappointed in her—how could she doubt it? Whether their unknown kinship was a mysterious help to this confidence is a question easy to ask. The story makes no attempt to answer it.

A bad disappointment was pending, however. After some chance references to "mother," her great vigour in spite of her eighty years, the distances she could walk, and so on—and some notes about neighbours—Farmer Jones's Bull, mentioned as a local celebrity, naturally led back to Dave.

"The dear boy was never tired of telling about that Bull," said old Maisie. "I thought perhaps he made up a little as he went, for children will. Was it all true he told me about how he wasn't afraid to go up close, and the Bull was good and quiet?"

"Quite true," answered Mrs. Thrale. "Only we would never have given permission, me and mother, only we knew the animal by his character. He cannot abide grown men, and he's not to be trusted with women and little girls. But little boys may pat him, and no offence given. It was all quite true."

"Well, now!—that is very nice to know. Was it true, too, all about the horses and the wheelsacks, and the water-cart?"

"Of course!—oh yes, of course it was! That was our model. Only it should not have been wheelsacks. Wheat sacks! And water-cart!—he meant water-wheel. Bless the child!—he'd got it all topsy-turned. There's the model on the mantel-shelf, with the cloth over it. I'll take it off to show you. That won't do any harm. I only covered it so that no one should touch the glass. Because Ben Toft said the putty would be soft for a few days." A small bead-worked tablecloth, thick and protective, had been wrapped round the model.

Widow Thrale relighted the candles, which had been out of employment. They did not give a very good light. The old lady was just beginning to feel exhausted with so much talk. But she was bound to see this—Dave's model, his presentment of which had been a source of speculation in Sapps Court! Just fancy! Widow Thrale lifted it bodily from the chimney-shelf, and placed it on the table.

"Mother ought to tell you about it," said she, disengaging the covering, "because she knows so much more about it than I do. You see, when the water is poured in at the top and the clockwork is wound up, the mill works and the sacks go up and down, and one has to pretend they are taking grist up into the loft. It was working quite beautiful when mother put the water in for Dave to see. And it doesn't go out of order by standing; for, the last time before that, when mother set it going, was for the sake of little Robert that we lost when he was little older than Dave. Such a many years it seems since then!... What?"

For as she chatted on about what she conceived would be her visitor's interest in the model—Dave's interest, to wit—she had failed to hear her question, asked in a tremulous and almost inaudible voice:—"Where was it, the mill?... Whose mill?" A repetition of it, made with an effort, caused her to look round.

And then she saw that old Maisie's breath was coming fast, and that her words caught in it and became gasps. Her conclusion was immediate, disconnecting this agitation entirely from the subject of her speech. The old lady had got upset with so much excitement, that was all. Just think of all that perturbation last night, and the journey to-day! At her time of life! Besides, she had eaten nothing.

Evidently the proper course now was to induce her to go to bed, and get her that gruel, which she had promised to take. "I am sure you would be better in bed, Mrs. Prichard," said Mrs. Thrale. "Suppose you was to go now, and I'll get you your gruel."

Old Maisie gave way at once to the guidance of a persuasive hand, but held to her question. "Whose mill was it?"

"My grandfather's. Take care of the little step ... you shall see it again to-morrow by daylight. Bed's the place for you, dear Mrs. Prichard. Why—see!—you are shaking all over."

So she was, but not to such an extent as to retard operations. The old white head was soon on its pillow, but the old white face was unusually flushed. And the voice was quite tremulous that said, inexplicably:—"How came your grandfather to be the owner of that mill?"

Even a younger and stronger person than old Maisie might have lost head to the extent of not seeing that the best thing to say was:—"I have seen this model before. I knew it in my childhood." But so dumfoundered was she by what had been so suddenly sprung upon her that she could not have thought of any right thing to say, to save her life.

And how could Widow Thrale discern anything in what she did say but the effect of fatigue, excitement, and underfeeding on an octogenarian; probably older, and certainly weaker, than her mother? How came her grandfather to be the owner of Darenth Mill, indeed! Well!—she could get Dr. Nash round at half an hour's notice; that was one consolation. Meanwhile, could she seriously answer such an inquiry? Indeed she scarcely recognised that it was an inquiry. It was a symptom.

She spoke to the old head on the pillow, with eyes closed now. "Would you dislike it very much, ma'am, if I was to put one spoonful of brandy in the gruel? There is brandy without sending for it, because of invalids."

"Thank you, I think no brandy. It isn't good for me.... But I like to have the gruel, you know." She would not unsay the gruel, because she was sure this kind-hearted woman would take pleasure in getting it for her. Not that she wanted it.

Widow Thrale went back to the kitchen to see to the gruel. She was absolutely free from any thought of the model, in relation to the old lady's indisposition, or collapse, whichever it was. Lord Nelson himself, on the wall, was not more completely detached from it. While the gruel was arriving at maturity, she wrapped the covering again carefully over the mill and the wheelsacks and the water-cart, and Muggeridge, and replaced it on the chimney-shelf.

Left alone, old Maisie, no longer seeing the model before her, began to waver about the reality of the whole occurrence. Might it not have been a dream, a delusion; at least, an exaggeration? There was a model, with horses, and a waggon—yes! But was she quite sure it was her old mill—her father's? How could she be sure of anything, when it was all so long ago? Especially when her pulse was thumping, like this. Besides, there was a distinct fact that told against the identity of this model and the one it was so bewilderingly like; to wit—the size of it. That old model of sixty years ago was twice the size of this. She knew that, because she could remember her own hand on it, flat at the top. Her hand and Phoebe's together!—she remembered the incident plainly.

Here was Mrs. Thrale back with the gruel. How dear and kind she was! But a horrible thought kept creeping into old Maisie's mind. Was she—a liar? Had she not said that it was her grandfather's mill? Now that could not be true. If she had said great-uncle.... Well!—would that have made it any better? On reflection, certainly not! For her father had had neither brother nor sister. It was a relief to put speculation aside and accept the gruel.

She made one or two slight attempts to recur to the mill. But her hostess made no response; merely discouraged conversation on every topic. Mrs. Prichard had better not talk any more. The thing for her to do was to take her gruel and go to sleep. Perhaps it was. A reaction of fatigue added powerful arguments on the same side, and she was fain to surrender at discretion.

She must have slept for over six hours, for when the sudden sound of an early bird awakened her the dawn was creeping into the house. The window of her own room was shuttered and curtained, but she saw a line of daylight under the door. No one was moving yet. She instantly remembered all the events she had gone to sleep upon; the recollection of the mill-model in particular rushing at her aggressively, almost producing physical pain, like a blow. She knew there was another pain to come behind it, as soon as her ideas became collected. Yes—there it was! This dear lovable woman whom she had been so glad of, after the duplicity of those servants at the Towers, was as untrustworthy as they, and the whole world was a cheat! How else could it be, when she had heard her with her own ears say that that mill had belonged to her grandfather?

She lay and chafed, a helpless nervous system dominated by a cruel idea. Was there no way out? Only one—that she herself had been duped by her own imagination. But then, how was that possible? Unless, indeed, she was taking leave of her senses. Because, even supposing that she could fancy that another model of another mill could deceive her by a chance likeness; how about those two tiny figures of little girls in white bonnets and lilac frocks? Oh, that she could but prove them phantoms of an imagination stimulated by the first seeming identity of the building and the water-wheel! After all, all water-mills were much alike. Yes, the chances were large that she had cheated herself. But certainty—certainty—that was what she wanted. She felt sick with the intensity of her longing for firm ground.