"A glass of water, please," gasped Miss Ross; and while the old woman went to fetch it, followed by Johnnie, the young one summoned all her self-command not to betray her secret and her relationship to the child. It was her own Gustave. Of that she could have no doubt since she had laid bare the mark between his shoulders. Perhaps she was sure of him yesterday, shouting at the cottage-door while the carriage passed; perhaps she had been sure all last night, waking every ten minutes from a dream of her boy; all this morning, resolving that nothing should prevent her seeing him to-day; no, not the certainty of calumny, exposure, open shame! Had it been otherwise, she must have broken down more foolishly, more completely. Now she recovered herself, as she had often done before in positions of far greater difficulty. When she took the glass of water from Mrs. Mole's sympathising hand, her voice was steady, her face perfectly calm and serene. "You are right," she said, "the sun is hot, and I walked here very fast. The sight of this pretty child, too, was rather trying. He reminds me of--of--a nephew I lost long ago. Thank you. I'm better now, but I _should_ like to sit down and rest for half an hour, if I'm not in your way. So--so--this little fellow isn't yours, Mrs. Mole, after all." Mrs. Mole dearly loved a gossip. So would you or I, if we spent our days in a two-roomed cottage, with no companion but a child, no amusement whatever, no occupation but cleaning household utensils for the purpose of dirtying them forthwith, no daily paper, no exchange of ideas, no exercise of the intellect, beyond a weekly effort to keep awake during the parson's sermon. Gossip, indeed! If it was not for gossip how many good, industrious, hard-living women would go melancholy mad? "He's not mine, miss. I wishes he wur," she answered, with an elbow in the palm of each hand, an attitude Mrs. Mole considered favourable to conversation. "But, whatever I should do without Johnnie, or Johnnie without me, I know no more than the dead. The sense of that there child, miss, and the ways of 'un, you'd think as he was twelve year old at least. To see him take off his little boots, and fold up his little clothes, every article, and come an' say his little prayers on my knee afore ever he goes to his little bed, it's wonderful, that's what it is!" The tears were rising to Jin's eyes once more. "Who taught him to say his prayers?" she asked, keeping them down with an effort. "Well, he didn't know none when he came here first," answered Mrs. Mole apologetically. "He's very young a-course, and he hadn't been taught none maybe. But, Lor' bless ye, that there child didn't want no teaching. Ah! there's children in heaven, I humbly hope, and I'll never believe but they're like my Johnnie!" "A little tidier I should suppose," thought Miss Ross, but she could have hugged this plain old woman nevertheless, for her kindly, honest heart.