“Husht!” said Betty. “Don’t take on like that. There’s somebody a-coming. Husht! It’s just like as if it was a child of your own.” “And so I feel,” said Mrs. Swayne; “worse luck for her, poor lass. If she was mine--” “Husht!” said Betty again; and then the approaching steps which they had heard for the last minute reached the threshold, and a woman presented herself at the door. She was not a woman that either of them knew. She was old, very tall, very thin, and very dusty with walking. “I’m most dead with tiredness. May I come in and rest a bit?” she said. She had a pair of keen black eyes, which gleamed out below her poke bonnet, and took in every thing, and did not look excessively tired; but her scanty black gown was white with dust. Old Betty, for her own part, did not admire the stranger’s looks, but she consented to let her come in, “manners” forbidding any inhospitality, and placed her a chair as near as possible to the door. “I come like a stranger,” said the woman, “but I’m not to call a stranger neither. I’m Nancy as lives with old Mrs. Fennell, them young folks’ grandmamma. I had summat to do nigh here, and I thought as I’d like to see the place. It’s a fine place for one as was nothing but an attorney once. I allays wonder if they’re good folks to live under, such folks as these.” “So you’re Nancy!” said the old woman of the lodge. “I’ve heard tell of you. I heard of you along of Stevens as you recommended here. I haven’t got nothing to say against the masters; they’re well and well enough; Miss Sara, she’s hasty, but she’s a good heart.” “She don’t show it to her own flesh and blood,” said Nancy, significantly. “Is this lady one as lives about here?” Then it was explained to the stranger who Mrs. Swayne was. “Mr. Swayne built them cottages,” said Betty; “they’re his own, and as nice a well-furnished house and as comfortable; and his good lady ain’t one of them that wastes or wants. She has a lodger in the front parlor, and keeps ’em as nice as it’s a picture to see, and as respected in the whole parish--” “Don’t you go on a-praising me before my face,” said Mrs. Swayne, modestly; “we’re folks as are neither rich nor poor, and can give our neighbors a hand by times and times. You’re a stranger, as is well seen, or you wouldn’t be cur’ous about Swayne and me.” “I’m a stranger sure enough,” said Nancy. “We’re poor relations, that’s what we are; and the likes of us is not wanted here. If I was them I’d take more notice o’ my own flesh and blood, and one as can serve them yet, like _she_ can. It ain’t what you call a desirable place,” said Nancy; “she’s awful aggravating sometimes, like the most of old women; but all the same they’re her children’s children, and I’d allays let that count if it was me.”