"I think you are mistaken, Stephen," said Doctor Miles, shaking his head; "but, at all events, if such a thing be possible, she will now watch you with more satisfaction, when you are supplying her place in affection to her mother." "I will do my best, Sir," said Stephen Gimlet, "if it be only on that account." "I am sure you will, Stephen," answered the worthy clergyman; "and so, the first spare moment you have, you had better go down and talk with Mrs. Lamb.--Now, Mr. Beauchamp, I am ready." CHAPTER XXIV. "Well, well, sit down and cheer yourself, Goody Lamb," said Stephen Gimlet, after an interval of thirty hours--for I must pass over for the present those other events affecting more important characters in this tale, which filled up the intervening time in the neighbourhood of Tarningham--"let bygones be bygones, as they say in the country where you have lived so much. Here you are, in as comfortable a cottage as any in the country. I have plenty, and to spare; and, forgetting all that's past and done, I will try to be a son to you and a brother to poor Bill." "Thank you, Stephen, thank you," said the old woman, to whom he spoke--a quiet, resigned-looking person, with fine features, and large dark eyes, undimmed by time, though the hair was as white as snow, the skin exceedingly wrinkled, and the frame, apparently, enfeebled and bowed down with sickness, cares, or years; "I am sure you will do what you can, my poor lad; but still I cannot help feeling a little odd at having to move again at my time of life. I thought, when I and my poor husband, Davie Lamb, came up here to Tarningham, out of Scotland, it was the last time I should have to change. But we can never tell what may happen to us. I fancied, when I went to Scotland with stiff old Miss Moreton, that I was to be settled there for life. There I married Lamb, and thought it less likely than ever that I should change, when, suddenly, he takes it into his head to come up here to the place where I was born and brought up, and never told me why or wherefore." "Ay, he was a close, hard man," said Stephen Gimlet; "he was not likely to give reasons to any one; he never did to me, but just said two or three words, and flung away." "He was a kind husband and a kind father," said the widow, "though he said less than most men, I will acknowledge." "He was not kind to his poor, dear girl," muttered Stephen Gimlet, in a tone which rendered his words scarcely audible; but yet the widow caught, or divined their sense clearly enough; and she answered: "Well, Stephen, don't let us talk about it. There are some things that you and I cannot well agree upon; and it is better not to speak of them. Poor Davie's temper was soured by a great many things. People did not behave to him as well as they ought; and, although I have a notion they persuaded him to come here, they did not do for him all they promised."