Open doors were kept at the parsonage, as was generally the case in Elizabethan days. It was therefore no surprise to Mrs Tremayne, who was occupied in the kitchen, with her one servant Alison acting under her orders, to hear a smart rap on the door which shut off the kitchen from the hall. "Come within!" she called in answer, expecting some parishioner in want of advice or alms. But in marched an upright, brisk old lady, with silver hair, and a stout staff in her hand. "I am come to see Thekla Rose," said she. Mrs Tremayne was surprised now. It was thirty years since that name had belonged to her. "And Thekla Rose has forgot me," added the visitor. "There is a difference betwixt forgetting and not knowing," replied Mrs Tremayne with a smile. "There is so," returned the old lady. "Therefore to make me known, which I see I am not,--my name is Philippa Basset." The exclamation of delighted recognition which broke from the Rector's wife must have shown Philippa that she was by no means forgotten. Mrs Tremayne took her visitor into the parlour, just then unoccupied,-- seated her in a comfortable cushioned chair, and, leaving Alison to bake or burn the cakes and pie in the oven as she found it convenient, had thenceforward no eyes and ears but for Philippa Basset. Certainly the latter had no cause to doubt herself welcome. "I spake truth, Thekla, child, when I said I was come to see thee. Yet it was but the half of truth, for I am come likewise to see Robin: and I would fain acquaint me with yonder childre. Be they now within doors?" "They be not all forth, or I mistake," said Mrs Tremayne; and she went to the door and called them--all four in turn. Blanche answered from the head of the stairs, but avowed herself ignorant of the whereabouts of any one else; and Mrs Tremayne begged her to look for and bring such as she could find to the parlour, to see an old friend of Clare's family. In a few minutes Blanche and Lysken presented themselves. Arthur and Clare were not to be found. Philippa's keen, quick eyes surveyed the two girls as they entered, and mentally took stock of both. "A vain, giddy goose!" was her rapid estimate of Blanche; wherein, if she did Blanche a little injustice, there was some element of truth. "Calm and deep, like a river," she said to herself of Lysken: and there she judged rightly enough. Before any conversation beyond the mere introductions could occur, in trotted Mrs Rose. "Mistress Philippa, you be the fairest ointment for the eyen that I have seen these many days!" said the lively little Flemish lady. "_Ma foi_! I do feel myself run back, the half of my life, but to look on you. I am a young woman once again." "Old friend, we be both of us aged women," said Philippa.