Elcy, on being patted consolingly on the shoulder, looked up for a minute, and the Major no sooner recognised the features of the young lady who had so recently been an inmate of Mrs. Fokesell’s establishment, than he took her by the hand, and saying _that_ was no place for her, bade her step into his room and let him know all about what had happened. Then, as he raised the hesitating girl from her seat, and led her along the passage, he said, comfortingly—“There—there: you need have no foolish ceremony with me; for, do you know, I find, on talking with Mrs. Fokesell, that your papa is the neighbour of my old East Indian friend, Colonel Benson. Why, I’ve heard the colonel talk by the hour of old Cursty Sandboys, and all his family, till I’ve known you every one without seeing you, as well as if I’d been bred and born in Buttermere. You’re Elcy Sandboys, I’m certain: you’re the little girl that used to be so fond of pet squirrels and doves,—oh! yes, I know all about you: and there’s that hairbrained young brother of yours, Master Jobby: and Mrs. Sandboys, that cleanly and tidy mother of your own, whom Colonel Benson gave away to your father at Lan-something-or-other Green Church,—eh? There, you needn’t fidget with me! You see I know all about the whole of you: and how ever I could have been so foolish as not to have guessed when I first heard your name that you were the Colonel’s old friends, I can’t say. I’ve been puzzling my head about it ever since Mrs. Fokesell told me where you came from. But, you see, London and Buttermere are so wide apart, that I never should have dreamt of your being the same people, if I hadn’t learnt as much the day after you had gone.” Then, as the Major saw the girl half rise from her seat, as if she wished to depart, he exclaimed, in as tender a tone as he could manage, “Come! come! what _are_ you fidgeting about there? Come, tell me now, where’s your father and mother? I quite long to shake them both by the hand. But what’s all this fretting about, my little one, eh? Come, now; make a friend of me! Have some of those big-whiskered foreign fellows been insulting you in the street. D——n ’em, I only wish I could have caught them at it. I’d have let them feel the tip of my wooden leg, I warrant them. Come, tell me about it, like a good girl; for if it were only for Colonel Benson’s sake, you’d always find a friend in me.”