The owner of the phaeton came straight towards the small boy who was watching the horses with interest, pleased at the halt and oblivious of his own connection with it. The traveller was a man who looked forty-eight despite his frosted hair, and was in reality ten years older. He was tall, well beyond average height, thin, well-fashioned, with a keen kindly face, clean shaven. His mouth was humorous, and there was a certain serenity of expression and bearing that invited confidence. The boy, casting a hasty glance at him as he approached, thought him a very fine gentleman indeed: as in fact he was, in every possible meaning of the word. "Is this Whitmansworth?" demanded the owner of the phaeton. His tone was not aggressive. The boy gave him as straight a look of judgment as he himself received. "Down there it is," with a nod of his head in the direction of the distant townlet. "And not up here?" "Dunno, they calls it the Great Road." The stranger still stood looking down at him fixedly. "Is your name James Christopher Hibbault?" Without warning, without time for the canny little morsel of humanity to weigh the wisdom of an answer, the question was shot at him and he was left gasping and speechless after an incriminating "Yes," forced from him by the suddenness of the onslaught, and the truth-compelling power of those keen eyes. "Least it's Hibbault," he added unwillingly. "Jim, they calls me." "I think it is Christopher as well, and I prefer Christopher. And what are you doing on the Great Road at this hour in the afternoon, Christopher?" And Jim--or Christopher,--trained and renowned for a useful evasiveness of retort in those far-off London days, answered mechanically: "Waiting for the fortune to come true." Then the hot blood rushed to his face from sheer shame at his own betrayal of the darling secret of his small existence. "Your fortune?" echoed the other slowly. "Fortunes do not come for waiting. What do you mean?" "It was the old woman said so--mother didn't believe it. She said as how my fortune would come to me on the Great Road. There wer'n't no Great Road there, so when I heard as how they called this the Great Road, I just stuck to it." It was a long speech. The boy had none of the half-stupid stolidity of the country-bred, and yet lacked something of the garrulity of the cute street lad. His voice too was a surprise. The broad vowels seemed acquired and uncertain and jarred on the hearer with a sense of misfit. "Do you live at Whitmansworth Union?" There was a faint tinge of resentment in the short "Yes." How did the gentleman know it, and, anyhow, why should he tell him? Jim felt irritated. The owner of the phaeton stood still a moment with one hand on the dusty little shoulder, and then looked round at the water-meadows, the distant copses, the more distant shimmering downs. Then he laughed, saying something the boy did not understand, and looked down at the sharp inquiring little face again.