“Joan will tell you,” the girl said. “She knows everyone, and whom they married, and all their aunts and uncles. You have only to ask my sister.” More and mere confused grew Joan. She looked at Liddy with reproachful eyes; she even addressed a plaintive glance to Raaf, who did not understand her embarrassment, and for the moment was too angry to have helped if he had. “Of your--own name?” she said, faltering. “Yes; forty years ago, or so, she was Lydia Brotherton.” “Why, it’s mother!” said Joan, her countenance beaming. There was a victory over everybody, Pilgrims and all; while the young man, starting, turned round with amazed pleasure, and looked, not at Joan, who spoke, however, but at Lydia, who listened, looking up at him, as much astonished as he. “Mother!” Lydia said, and her fair countenance brightened into smiles from which all the mischievous meaning had gone. “Well, that’s as easy a find as I ever heard of,” cried Joan, “and how lucky you should have come here! Mother _will_ be pleased! She has not seen any of her relations for years. She was an only child, so she had never any near friends. How pleased she will be, to be sure! The best thing you can do is to stay here all night, and ride over with Liddy to-morrow: she is going home to-morrow. Bless me, I think I’ll go too, just to see mother so pleased!” “It is a delightful discovery,” said young Brotherton. “How fortunate that I mentioned it now; my father charged me to find out--but I confess I had forgotten till this moment. How lucky I thought of it! I am afraid I must go home to-night with these good people who have been so kind to me; but I will come back in the morning. It is delightful to fall among kindred,” the young man said, looking at Lydia, whose face reflected all manner of pleasant sensations, surprises, a delightful sense of novelty and exhilaration. She had but few relatives, and a new cousin was delightful--especially a cousin so completely creditable, a gentleman, one about whom there could not be two opinions. The Pilgrims, who had been so proud of this “strange young man,” had altogether disappeared now, and Raaf was left entirely out of the little group of three, all so pleased with themselves and each other. Joan forgot even those duties which usually she performed with such devotion, leaving the round game and its players to themselves, and no longer thinking either of the duet of the Pilgrim girls, or Raaf’s song. “I took the greatest notice of you from the moment you came in,” she said. “I cannot tell you how it was. It’s not that there is any family likeness, for I can’t see any. Liddy favours mother, and there’s not a feature alike in her and you; but all the same I took notice of you from the first. I didn’t catch your name, or it might have made me think--but there was something. I was more vexed than pleased with those Pilgrims; but all the same, when I caught sight of you----” “It was kindred at first sight,” said the young man.