She was suddenly struck with the fact that this was no common workman, this pale, grimy young Yorkshireman with the strong jaw and the clear, steady eyes, although he was dressed in an old shirt blackened by coal dust, and trousers packed with pieces of sacking tied round with string. “Ah’m reeght glad to ha’ been of any service to yer, Miss,” said Bram in a very gentle tone. There was a moment’s silence, during which Miss Biron finally made up her mind what to do. Looking up quickly, with the blush still in her face, she said, “Thank you very much. Good-morning,” and, to Bram’s great relief, turned away without offering him the money. CHAPTER III. SOMETHING WRONG AT THE FARM. It is certain that Bram Elshaw was still thinking more of Miss Biron than of the communication which Mr. Cornthwaite was to make to him when he presented himself at the back door of his employer’s residence on the following Thursday evening. Holme Park was on the side of one of the hills which surround the city of Sheffield, and was a steep, charmingly-wooded piece of grass and from a small plateau in which the red brick house looked down at the rows of new red brick cottages, at the factory chimneys, and the smoke clouds of the hive below. Bram had always taken his messages to the back door of the house, but he was shrewd enough to guess, from the altered manner of the servant who now let him in and conducted him at once to the library, that this was the last time he should have to enter by that way. And he was right. Mr Cornthwaite was as precise in manner, as business-like as usual, but his tone was also a little different, as he told Bram that his obvious abilities were thrown away on his present occupation, and that he was willing to take him into his office, if he cared to come, without any premium. Bram thanked him, and accepted the offer, but he showed no more than conventional gratitude. The shrewd young Yorkshireman was really more grateful than he seemed, but he saw that his employer was acting in his own interest rather than from benevolence, and, although he made no objections to the smallness of the salary he was to receive, he modestly but firmly refused to bind himself for any fixed period. “Ah may be a failure, sir,” he objected quietly, “and Ah should like to be free to goa back to ma auld work if Ah was.” So the bargain was struck on his own terms, and he retired respectfully just as a servant entered the library to announce that Miss Biron wished to see Mr. Cornthwaite. And at the same moment the young girl herself tripped into the room, with a worried and anxious look on her face. Mr. Cornthwaite rose from his chair with a frown of annoyance. “My dear Claire, your father really should not allow you to come this long way by yourself--at night, too. It is neither proper nor safe. By the time dinner is over it will be dark, and you have a long way to go.”