impostor, "if you have any doubt that you will be paid." "Oh, my little gentleman," cried Mrs. Bagley, "take whatever you please, sir! I'm not a bit afraid; and if you was never to pay me, you're but a child, if I may make bold to say so; and as for a cake or a---- But if you'll take my advice, sir, a good bit of bread and butter would be far more wholesome, and you shall have that in a moment." "Thank you very much," said Geoff, though he cast longing eyes at the cakes, which had the advantage of being ready; "and please might I have a chair or a stool to sit down upon, for I am very tired? May I go into that nice room there, while you cut the bread and butter? My mother," said the boy, with a sigh of pleasure, throwing himself down in Mrs. Bagley's big chair, which she dragged out of its corner for him, "will be very much obliged to you when she knows. Yes, I am only a child," he continued, after a moment; "but I never thought I was so little till I got far away from home. Will you tell me, please, where I am now?" Mrs. Bagley was greatly impressed by this little personage, who looked so small and talked with such imposing self-possession. She set down before him a glass of milk with the cream on it, which she had intended for her own tea, and a great slice of bread and butter, which Geoff entered upon without further compliment. "This is Underwood," she said, "and Mrs. Warrender's is close by, and there's nobody but will be ready to show you the way; but I do hope, sir, as you haven't run away from home." "Oh no," said Geoff, with his mouth full of bread and butter, "not at all. I only came to see Theo,--that is Mr. Warrender's name, you know. To be sure," he added, "mamma will not know where I am, and probably she is very frightened; that is something like running away, isn't it? I hope they have caught my pony, and then when I have rested a little I can ride home. Is that a nice house, that tall red house with the wall round it, or do they shut up people there?" "Ah, that's the Elms," said the old lady, and she gave a glance which Geoff did not understand to the young woman who was sitting at work behind. "I don't know as folks is ever shut up in it," she said, significantly; "but don't you never go there, my little gentleman, for it ain't a nice house." "The like of him couldn't get no harm--if even, Granny, it was as bad as you think." "There is nobody as wouldn't get harm, man or woman, or even children," cried Granny dogmatically. "It was the last place as poor Lord Markland was ever in afore his accident, and who knows----" Geoff put down his bread and butter. "That's my father," he said. He did not use the more familiar title when talking to strangers. "Did he know those people? Perhaps his horses got wild escaping from them." Mrs. Bagley lifted up her hands in awe and wonder. "My stars!" she said, "I thought I had seen him before. Lizzie, it's the little lord."