"What didst say?" she asked, putting her hand behind her ear. "I's getting deaf, lad, breaking up, losing my sight, and my hearing, and my wits, too, it seems. I's an old woman, Joel. How old art thou? Twenty-five! It's good to be twenty-five! It's a wise, pleasant age to be!" Her voice was growing scornful. "An age for sowing wild oats, and gathering apples off other folks trees, eh? Haven't you a word to say?" she continued. "Haven't you a reason to give for coming to see me? Lost thy tongue, hasta? Well, well, I's pleased and proud it's me you've come to see; me, the great-grandmother, and not one of the lasses upstairs. Step hither to the bedside, lad, till I see thee better." Unable to understand the old woman's words, but hoping that his purpose might escape undetected, Joel did as she bade him, swaggering somewhat, and curtaining his real feelings with a smile. She gripped him with her skinny hands. "Oh, thee's a fine make of a man," she said, her voice changing; "thee's a man indeed, a handsome, pleasant-spoken young man and a virtuous one." She shook him with her rising passion. "Didst think to find me asleep?" she asked. "Didst think to pluck the bonny golden apples out o' my hand? I never sleep, lad, leastways, not at night. And this night--wouldst like to know where I've been--eh?" She paused to give point to her words. "I've been with your grandfather. And you're blood of his blood and bone of his bone! Ah! he should have married me, though I was but a statesman's lass, and not heiress to a fine house. I'd have given him children worthy of him--lads that would have held their heads high, and walked with honest folk, and just folk, and proud folk--too proud to soil their souls with their hands. It's your lady grandmother that's polluted you, Joel, so you can't help it. Poor lad, poor lad--the spring was poisoned before you were born!" Her voice softened, and she looked at him more kindly. "You might have trusted me, Joel," she said. "You should have been straight with me, asked in the name of your grandfather, I'd have listened for his sake." He muttered something about her hard nature. "Hard!" she replied. "Aye, I's hard, but iron melts. I'd have melted like a bit of beeswax, if you'd been strong and true and wise enough to come to me with a straight story. It's them crooked ways of folk I can't abide. Why didn't you--eh?" She pushed him suddenly away. "You've a bad heart, Joel, though you've the face of your grandfather, and he was the handsomest man in the dales. You've got his name too--Joel Hart! Joel Hart! A young lass once thought it was the sweetest music in the world! Shame on you, shame on you for bringing a stain on it!" "It was stained before I got it," he replied; he was not one to take his deserts meekly. "His own country shot him for a rebel!" "That's an ill jibe," she cried, shaking her clenched fist at him, then fell back upon her pillows unable to continue, but glaring like a wounded wild thing.