Mrs. Joscelyn came out to meet them at the door. She liked to see her Liddy get down beaming, from her horse--the horse as handsome as herself, which Mrs. Joscelyn began for the first time to see the beauty of, now that her child was the rider. She did not know who the young man was, and she did not much care. Her mind had not been awakened to the matrimonial question, though, to tell the truth, no wild beast, no lion with a devouring maw, would have wakened so much alarm in Mrs. Joscelyn as the appearance of a lover for Liddy. That would have inferred the saddest fate for herself, the destruction of her present sweet life, and all the late happiness which had come to her in compensation for her troubles; but fortunately such an idea did not enter into her mind. It was a pleasant arrival. Joan, always active and bright, lifting down with her own hands her big basket, stood in the hall watching too the arrival of the young people, yet calling out to the groom some prudent suggestions about her own horse, which was being led away to the stables. She was as well informed about all the necessities of the stable as any of them, and took the deepest interest in the welfare of the animals, and she stepped forward to pat the fine neck of Liddy’s steed as her mother got the young rider in her arms. “Did you ever see a prettier creature?” she said to Brotherton, “and I would not say but there were two of them. But mother’s just a fool about Liddy. She thinks there’s nothing like her on the face of the earth. Mother, here’s a relation come to see you,” she added, turning round. Mrs. Joscelyn gave a little cry. Brotherton was standing against the light, so that his features were not at first decipherable. She made a quick step forward, throwing out her hands, then grew suddenly pale. “I don’t know what I was thinking of,” she said, faintly. “I am sure I beg your friend’s pardon, Joan, and yours too.” “I see what you’re thinking of, mother--but there’s nothing in it,” Joan said. “This is young Mr. Brotherton, who’s come to the Fells asking for a cousin of his name that married here long ago. If it’s not you, I don’t know who it can be--and I’ve brought him to see you. It would be his father you knew, for he’s but a young lad himself, as you can see.” “He’s kindly welcome,” Mrs. Joscelyn said, and he was brought into the parlour, and a great deal of family explanation was gone through. Mrs. Joscelyn had her pride of birth, as well as her daughter, and it had always been a secret pleasure to her to think that there was a Sir John in her family, who might turn up some time or other and balance the faded Joscelyn pretensions with a far more tangible living dignity. For her own part, she did not know anything about Sir John; but it gratified her mightily to think that he had remembered he had a cousin married in the Fell-country. “There could not be any--stranger that it would give me more pleasure to see,” she said.