"Very nearly," was the reply. "I knew Lady Louisa before she was married. My father was one of her father's oldest tenants. I was married some years before my lady, and lost both my husband and child. When Francis was born he wasn't very strong, and my lady engaged a nurse for him with the best possible recommendations, but she was no use and the child didn't thrive. My lady was very troubled about him--he was her only one, you see--and when the nurse proved so unsatisfactory she wrote to me and asked me to come. "I remember her letter now. 'Will you come and help me to look after him?' she wrote, 'for I would rather he had your affection, Jane, than the wider experience of strangers. I know you will never neglect him, and can trust you.' So I came. He was about a year old--a tiny, weakly baby; but he throve wonderfully, although my lady used to say we were like two hens with one chick. She was very wise and would not let him be spoilt. His father died when he was about ten years old. He was much older than Lady Louisa and had been twice married, as I think I told you." She paused for a few minutes and then resumed: "Francis was always so happy. It was his nature. Very high-spirited, and as a child very quick-tempered, but if he was angry it was just a flash, all over in a minute." "Who has been nursing him in his illness?" asked Philippa. "At first, of course, he had trained nurses, but later, when he could not be called ill in himself, he just had his own valet for some time. But after a while, to Lady Louisa's great distress, some one spread a report in the village that he was out of his mind, so she arranged that his rooms were to be quite separate. They were never entered by the house servants. I sent for a nephew of mine, a quiet, trustworthy man who I knew could keep his tongue in his head, and for years he has waited on him, and his wife has had charge of his rooms under my supervision. I have been to see him every day and seen to his comfort, but I am very old now and past work. If that were not so, should not I be nursing him now?" she asked sadly. "It is difficult to stand aside and watch others doing what you long to do yourself. But that must be in old age. It is years since he crossed the threshold of his own rooms, and I am sure there are people on the place now who don't know he lives here--so quiet was it kept, by my lady's wish. Oh," she cried tremulously, "if my dear lady could only be here to see the change in him!" "You have seen him to-day?" asked Philippa. "How did you think he was looking?" "He looks very ill," answered the old woman; "but he was quite his old self. He had some little joke ready for me. He was always full of fun. Isn't it wonderful? It seems just as if all those years had been wiped right off, as you would wipe a slate." "Did he speak of old times?"