"I am better here, Miss Carruthers," said Mrs. Brookes. "I daresay there won't be much delay in London--for Mrs. Carruthers and master, I mean. You'll stay awhile with Mrs. Stanhope, belike?" "O dear no--I certainly shall not," replied Clare, with the prettiest air of importance. "I shall come down with my uncle and aunt. My uncle says we are to come as soon as the doctors will let us go." "And Mr. Felton also, you say, Miss Carruthers?" "Yes, and Mr. Dallas. How delighted I am, Mrs. Brookes--how delighted you must be!" The girl's face flushed deeply. She was all glowing with the generous ardour of her feelings. She had taken off her hat, and was standing before the open window in the morning-room, her habit gathered up in one hand, her slight figure trembling, her beautiful face radiant. "I am sure it has been almost as hard for you as for his mother. I could not say anything about it before, Nurse Ellen"--it was the first time Clare had ever called the old woman by this name--"because--because I knew nothing--no one ever told me anything, and I must have seemed to blame my uncle. But, indeed, it pained me very much, and now--now I am so happy!" Bright swift tears sparkled in her golden-brown eyes. She dashed them away, and, taking the old woman's hands in hers, she said, with girlish archness, "You must not hate me any more, Nurse Ellen, for 'Master George' and I are going to be very good friends." "Hate you, my dear young lady!" said Mrs. Brookes, who was too old to blush externally, but who certainly felt like blushing. "How can you have such fancies? Who could hate _you?_" "You--you dear, faithful old thing! But it's all right now; and, Nurse Ellen," she said, seriously, "I am sure we owe all this happy change to Mr. Felton. The moment I saw that man, I felt he had come to do good. By-the-by, my uncle tells me there is no news of Mr. Felton's son yet. I suppose you never saw him, nurse?" "La, bless you, no, my dear. I never saw his father till the day he came here. Mr. Arthur was born in America." "Did he ever come to England before? Did Mrs. Carruthers ever see him?" "Never. He told his father he would see his aunt the first thing he did, and he never came anigh the place. I doubt he's a black sheep, Miss Carruthers." "I hope not, for his father's sake, nurse." And then Clare proceeded to make various arrangements with Mrs. Brookes, thinking the while: "Arthur Felton never was here. Mrs. Carruthers never saw him. For a moment I fancied he might have been Paul Ward." "I wonder what I shall think of George Dallas?" thought Clare as she rode away from Poynings in the afternoon, having given Thomas the necessary orders. "I wonder what he will think of me? I dare say he does not like the idea of me much. Perhaps I should not like the idea of _him_, if he were in my place and I in his; but, as it is, _I decidedly do_."