"I have very little more to tell you, as yet," Overshute answered, with a smile at both. "You have listened with wonderful patience to me; and I am surprised at remembering half of what happened to me in a hurry so. I shall make more allowance for witnesses now, when they get confused and hesitate. But, as I was going to say, I rode over to Nettlebed Common, or whatever it is called, in good time yesterday, so as to have a long quiet talk with Cinnaminta; knowing that if she would not tell me the truth, she would tell no falsehood. As I rode along in that fine spring sun, my mind was unusually clear and bright. I saw to a nicety what questions I ought to put, and how to put them; and nothing of all the ins and outs of this matter could escape me. When the sun threw my shadow, as sharp as a die, I could not help laughing to the open road and the clear long breadth of prospect, at the narrow stupid thoughts we had been thinking throughout the winter. In a word, I was sure, as I am of my life, of finding sweet Grace Oglander, and restoring her father to his fine old health, and spreading great happiness everywhere; and thus I rode up to the gipsy-camp--and there was not a shadow or a trace of it!" CHAPTER XXII. A DELICATE SUBJECT. The log had burned down, and the fire was low, when Russel thus ended his story. Cripps was indignant, because he had made up his mind for "summat of a zettlement;" and Esther was full of young womanly thoughts about Cinnaminta and her poor child. But even before they could consult one another, or cross-examine, a loud, sharp knock at the door was heard, and in ran Mary Hookham. "Oh, if you please, sir--oh, if you please, sir!" she exclaimed with both hands up, and making the most of her shawl fringe, "such a thing have turned up!--I never! Them stockings! Oh, them silk stockings, sir! Your Worship--oh, them silk stockings, sir!" "My dear," said Cripps in a fatherly tone, and with less contemporary feeling than Mary might wish to inspire him with--"my dear good maid, you be that upset, that to spake, without sloping the spout of the kettle, might lade to a'most anything. Etty, you ain't had a drap of nort--and all the better for 'ee. Give over your glass, girl. Now, Miss Mary, the laste little drap, and then you spakes; and then you has another drap. 'Scoose me, your Worship, to make so bold; but a young man can't see them things in the right light." "Oh, Master Cripps, now!" cried Mary Hookham, "what but a young man be you yourself? And none of they young men can point their tongues, to compare with you, to my mind. But I beg your pardon, sir, Mr. Russel--your name come so familiar to me, through our dear young lady. I forgot what I was a-doing, your Worship, to be sitting down in your presence so!"