"Some one seems to be trying to get in," said Mrs. Lomax. "Just run and open the gate, will you, Griff? You always bang it so hard, and the latch, like myself, is getting worn out." Again that helpless note in her voice. Griff did not like it at all. "Worn out?" he echoed. "Not till you give better proof of it, foolish mother." "Boy, kindly flatter your wife, and leave tag-ends of sincerity for your mother." She tried to laugh, but the effort was not very successful. Griff did as he was bid, and went to open the gate. At the other side stood Greta Rotherson. "How do you do?" he observed, holding out his hand across the top bar. "I'm very hot, rather cross, and exceedingly anxious to get under shelter. How would it be, Mr. Lomax, if you opened the gate?" "Not just yet. I enjoy making you really angry; it brings such a quaint little flush to your cheeks." "I don't want compliments," protested Greta, blushing rosier with pleasure all the same. "You'll have to put up with them, I fear, if you won't change your looks. Even a staid married man like myself----" "Married you may be, sir, but staid you will never become," said Greta, demurely. "I am going to knock at the back door, if you won't let me in at the front." He opened at that, after weighty argument with the latch, and Greta tripped in, looking like a bit of fleecy, fair-weather cloud in her muslin dress. Griff could never quite rid himself of the notion that she was just a pretty child, and he treated her accordingly. He wondered, in a way, at the preacher's infatuation; and, with his mole-like outlook on women as a whole, he asked himself sometimes if little Greta would be able to weather foul days as well as fair. Mrs. Lomax brightened as she saw the girl. She had a better notion of these matters than her son, and never felt the least doubt but that Greta, for all her butterfly prettiness, was just the sort of woman to come out strong in a crisis. "You are earlier than I expected you, my dear. I am glad," said the old lady, simply. "Yes, father had to go off to Saxilton on business, and I thought you might like a chat--which means that I wanted one badly myself." Then she and Griff began teasing each other, till Greta was likely to have the worst of it, and Mrs. Lomax interfered. And after awhile there came another rattling at the gate, followed by the scrunch of heavy boots on the gravel. Greta talked faster, without waiting for any one to answer her, and her cheeks were an honest crimson. Gabriel Hirst, for once in a way, had come in a garb that was likely to advance his cause; though the accident of his taking Marshcotes Manor at the end of a long ride must not be set down to any cunning forethought on the preacher's part. He bungled less than usual as he came across the grass, and Griff smiled as he noted that his horseback humour was on him. Presently Mrs. Lomax snared Griff into the house, on the pretext of talking over some business matters with him.