'Ask a lawyer about it. Ask Mr Lambert,' Betty said. 'It ain't no good. The young fellow was here blustering last night. He says he is in want of cash, and he must have it. That's the long and the short of it. No, there's no hope. So the stock must go, and the bits of furniture that have stood here since I was no higher than the table.' 'Lor'!' the old man said, wandering back into the past, 'I can see my mother now a-polishing and rubbing yonder bureau till I could see my face in it. Well, well, it's not for myself I grieve, it's for you children.' Bryda had risen, and stood with one hand on her grandfather's shoulder and the other grasping the carved elbow of the old oak settle. Her lips were firmly shut, and her whole bearing determined, almost defiant. Presently she said,-- 'I never knew before it was as bad as this. I never knew my father was what Aunt Dorothy says--a disgrace. But did _you_ know it, Betty?' 'I guessed something, not much; but, Bryda, it is all over now.' 'All over,' the girl said, with flashing eyes, 'all over! Such a stain can never be wiped away.' Then, with a sudden impulse of pity and tenderness, Bryda stooped, and kissing the furrowed brow of the old man, she said,-- 'Ah, poor grandfather!' 'He was such a fine, handsome boy, was our Phil. There was not one to match him--straight as a dart, and that strong, he could get the better of the strongest in the wrestling matches. Oh, he was a fine fellow was Phil! To see him on horseback was a treat.' 'What did he do? I wish to know now, grandfather.' But the old father shook his head. 'It is so long ago, now--near nineteen years. Yes, nineteen years. Betty was born just after, and her mother died of a broken heart, they said. Hearts don't break.' 'Do you know, Aunt Dorothy, what my father did?' 'Well, if you must know--he forged a cheque. If he hadn't been got off to America he would have been--hung. Father scraped up a hundred pounds, and sent him packing, and borrowed the three hundred to pay the man Phil had robbed. That's the long and short of it. I wasn't here, but that's what father told me, and I suppose it's gospel truth. It's over and done with now, and no one need have been the wiser if that fool, young Bayfield, had not come and stormed at father. Shameful, I call it.' Then Dorothy threw her apron over her face, and leaving the kitchen, called Betty to come and look after the butter. 'It is churning day,' she said, 'and to spoil pounds of good butter won't mend matters.' Betty obeyed, and Bryda was left with her grandfather. 'Is my father dead?' she asked, putting her mouth close to the old man's ear. 'Dead? Yes. I never heard a word of him since the ship sailed from Bristol one dark night. I put him aboard. No one knew. When I got back there was Bet wailing. She was born--and your poor silly mother died. Poor thing! poor thing! She said, "I am glad to die, take care of my babes." And I said I would, and so I did--eh, Biddy?'