So Nell smoothed her rippling hair, and went down to the parlour with a bad grace, and stood just inside the door, stiff as a soldier on duty, and without speaking a word. But Nora did not seem to perceive her mood. She thought her stiffness was meant for respect. ‘Oh, Miss Llewellyn,’ she began, ‘I’ve come over expressly to see you, and thank you better than I could this morning for the great service you rendered me. Don’t stand there, pray, but come here and sit down by me, and let me tell you how brave and courageous and good I think you were to do so much for a stranger.’ Nell’s haughty shyness was overcome by the cordiality of her new acquaintance. She sat down as she was asked to do, but not a feature of her beautiful face relaxed. She could not forget that she was speaking to a visitor from the Hall--that place which she had so much dreaded since she knew that Mr Portland was staying there. ‘I can’t see the particular courage of it, Mrs Lumley,’ she replied. ‘I was sauntering along inside the hedge looking for some of my mother’s turkey poults that had strayed from the yard when your horses came tearing along, and I put out my hand mechanically to stop them. You are making too much of my action--indeed you are. Tom was only a few yards further on, clipping the hedges. He would have stopped them, and better than I did, and not been rolled so ignominiously in the dust,’ and Nell could not help smiling at the recollection. ‘Ah, and you were kicked or something!’ exclaimed Nora; ‘I saw the blood on your arm. And yet you will say it was of no consequence.’ Nell rolled up the sleeve of her print dress, exposing her white, smooth arm. There was a long graze on it, and it was beginning to get discoloured. ‘That is all,’ she said contemptuously. ‘You don’t call _that_ anything.’ ‘But indeed I do,’ said Nora; ‘and it was ever so good of you to incur it for my sake. Besides, you don’t consider the risk you ran. Because you happened to get off with a few bruises, it doesn’t follow that it was not quite as brave of you to risk getting your leg broken or your head run over. And there is no saying what you did not save me from. No, no, Miss Llewellyn, you shall not put me off that way. You must let me offer you some little remuneration for your timely help. Don’t imagine I think any money can repay you for it, but perhaps you will buy yourself some little present to remind you of this day, and how grateful I am to you.’ And Nora placed the five-pound note gently in Nell’s hand as she spoke. Nell never opened it. It might have been for fifty pounds for aught she knew, but she took it up, folded as it was, and replaced it on her companion’s lap. ‘No, thank you, Mrs Lumley,’ she said quietly. ‘You mean it kindly, I know, and I appreciate your intention, but I cannot take money from you for so slight a thing. My father would not like it; we are not in need of it, and I shall remember you and to-day quite well without it.’