The lady, to the best of her ability, supplied her husband's place. She interviewed the visitor. As she laid her hand on the handle of the drawing-room door her attentive ear detected a curious sound within. "I do believe the woman's crying." She turned the handle. She entered the room. A woman was seated on the extreme edge of a chair. She was indulging in a series of audible sniffs. In the palm of her hand, compressed into a knot which had something of the consistency of a cricket ball, was her handkerchief. This she bobbed first at one eye, then at the other. When Mrs. Harland appeared she rose to her feet. The lady stared at her as if she were a spectre. "Jane Cooper!" she exclaimed. "Yes, ma'am." The woman dropped a curtsey. "You brazen hussey! How dare you come into my house!" "If you please, ma'am, I'm come after that boy of mine." She was a nervous, shrinking, little woman. She had fair hair and a washed-out complexion. Her pale blue eyes were blurred with weeping. She looked as though she had been crying for years. She wore a black silk dress, which was of primitive make, and the seams of which were slightly rusty. Her hands, which were gloveless, were large and red. Her shapeless bonnet had strayed on to the side of her head. Altogether she looked draggled and woebegone. "You've come after that boy of yours! What do you mean?" "My Neddy, ma'am." Mrs. Harland gave an indignant twitch to her skimpy skirts. She moved across the room in the direction of the bell. The woman, perceiving her intention, gave an appealing cry. "Don't be hard upon me. I've come all the way from America to see my Neddy, ma'am." Mrs. Harland hesitated, her hand upon the bell-rope. This woman, when a child, had been her own pupil in the Sunday-school. Later she had been her servant. While in her service she had "gone wrong." The same day on which she had been turned adrift she had disappeared from Duddenham. Her former mistress had heard nothing of her from that hour unto the present one. "Jane Cooper, my servant told me that you gave your name as Mrs. Bindon. Are you Mrs. Bindon? Is that true?" "It's gospel truth." "Then"--Mrs. Harland released her hold of the bell-rope--"it _was_ Jolly Jack." "That it was." Mrs. Harland moved a step nearer to the woman. "Do you mean to tell me that all those boys are yours?" "No, ma'am, only Neddy. His father had him called Edward J. Phillip, but he's always been Neddy to me. The rest are Mr. Bindon's." "The rest are Mr. Bindon's! Jane! what do you mean?" There was a ring, a good loud ring, at the front door bell. The woman clasped her hands. "There's the rest of them," she cried. "Oh, don't let them come in here." "The rest of them?" "The other Mrs. Bindons." Mrs. Harland clutched at the back of a chair. "The other Mrs. Bindons?" "They're always going on at me, and making fun of me, and pinching me. Oh! don't let them come in here."