"Maybe not," grannie said. "But if you don't look out, my dear, you'll make a big hole in your five thousand pounds, before ever it comes to you." Father laughed loud at the idea. The money seemed to him too much ever to come to an end. Grannie went out of the room, and I went after her, I didn't know why. She crossed into the parlour, and sat down, and I was frightened at the look in her face. "It's nothing," she said,—"only a sort of fainty feeling that comes over me once in a while. Just to show me I'm an old woman, maybe. Don't you mind." "O grannie, is it because you're fretting at having to leave the old home?" I asked: for I knew how it grieved her. "I dare say it is," she said: "I've a silly sort of fondness for places, and somehow I've never felt right and like myself since that was settled. But I'll have no words spoken to them, Phœbe. For it's not that which cuts most deep. It is seeing how things are tending, and knowing I can do nought to stop what is wrong." And I knew what she meant. CHAPTER X. MR. SIMMONS. ABOUT ten days after this, father said to us one morning that we were to have a nice dinner ready, for he was going to bring home a friend with him. He would not tell us who it was. "Nobody you know," he said. So we did as we were told, and asked no questions. The friend was one that we had never seen before. He was a little bit of a man, with a soft smooth manner of speaking, and grey eyes that had a sharp trick of seeing everything and yet that never looked anybody straight in the face. He had a smart ring on his little finger, and studs that looked like big diamonds. Mother thought him "quite a gentleman," and was as proud as could be to have him at her table. But grannie laughed when mother called him so; for grannie had been in good service when she was young, and she knew well enough the difference between a gentleman and not a gentleman. However, it was plain that Mr. Simmons thought himself a grand person, and counted it a condescension to dine in our cottage. He and father seemed to know a deal about one another that nobody else knew. I didn't like the way he nodded and winked at some things that were said between them. And I liked still less the sort of sneer that came over his face, when grannie once made mention of the Bible. After dinner father went off with Mr. Simmons, and did not come back till late. When he did, he pulled out his purse and said, "It's all right," and handed mother a five-pound note. "Has the money come?" asked mother. She was always asking that question. "No, but it won't be long," father said. "And I've a friend now, willing to advance whatever we need till it does come." "What makes him willing to do that, Miles?" says grannie, quite sharp-like. "Why, just in a friendly way," said father. "Is it only in a friendly way?" says grannie. "That's odd, when he don't know us, and has no particular call to do the kindness. Do you mean to say he don't look to turn a penny by it?"