"Now, there you go down again--there you go down," answered Cripps, who enjoyed the situation, and desired to make the most of it. "I thought you was all intellect--but better perhaps without too much. Put it to yourself now, Mary, whether I should look like this, if I had only brought the remainses." "Oh, where is her? Where is her? Wherever can her be?" cried Mary, forgetting all her fine education, in strong vernacular excitement. "Her be where I knows to find her again," answered Zacchary, with a steadfast face. It was not for any one to run in and strike a light betwixt him and his own work. "Her might be to Abingdon, or to Banbury. Proper time come, I can vetch her forrard." "Oh, I thought you had got her in the house, Master Cripps. How disappointing you do grow, to be sure! I suppose it is the way of all men." Mary shed a tear, and Master Cripps (having been tried by sundry women) went closer, to be sure of it. He was pleased at the sign, but he went on with his business. "You desarve to know everything. Now, can 'ee shut the doors, without a chance of anybody breaking in?" Mary and the cook, with a glance at one another, fastened all the doors of the large low kitchen, except the one leading to the lane itself. "You bide just as you be," said Cripps, "and I'll show 'ee something worth looking at." He ran to the place where Grace was hiding, in the chill and the heat of impatience, and he took the coarse sacks from her shoulders, as if her sackcloth time was done at last. Then he led her to the warmth and light, and she hung behind afraid of them. That strange, but not uncommon shyness of one's own familiar home--when long unseen--came over her; and she felt, for the moment, almost afraid of her own beloved father. But Cripps made her come, and both Mary Hookham and the fat cook cried, "Oh my! My good!" and ran up and kissed her, and held her hands; while she stood pale and mute, with large blue eyes brimful of tears, and lips that wavered between smile and sob. "Does he--does he know about me?" she managed to say to Cripps, while she glanced at the door leading up to her father's room. "Not he! Lord bless you, my dear," said Cripps, "it taketh 'em all half an hour apiece to believe as you ever be alive, miss." "It would never take my father two minutes," answered Grace; "he will be a great deal too glad of it to doubt." "You promised to bide by my diraxions," the Carrier cried reproachfully; "if 'ee don't, I 'on't answer for nort of it. Now sit you down, miss, by back-kitchen door, to come or go either way, according as is ordered. Now, Mary, plaize to go, and say, that Cripps hath come to see his Worship about a little mistake he hath made." Mr. Oglander never refused to see any who came to visit him. His simple, straightforward mind compelled him to go through with everything as it turned up, whether it were of his own business, or any other person's. Therefore he said, "Show Cripps in here."