On his way from his work a few days later, he stopped at the Briarley cottage. It was swept and garnished; there were no traces of the children about. Before he reached the house, there had been borne to him the sound of a voice reading at its highest and shrillest pitch, and he had recognized it as Janey's. As he entered, that young person rose panting from her seat, in her eagerness almost dropping the graphically illustrated paper she held in her hand. "Eh!" she exclaimed. "I _am_ glad to see thee! I could na ha' stood it mich longer. She would ha' me read the 'To-be-continyerd' one, an' I've bin at it nigh an hour." Granny Dixon turned on her sharply. "What art tha stoppin' fur?" she demanded. "What's th' matter wi' thee?" Murdoch gave a slight start. The sound was so tremendous that it seemed almost impossible that it should proceed from the small and shriveled figure in the armchair. "What art tha stoppin' fur?" she repeated. "Get on wi' thee." Janey drew near and spoke in her ear. "It's Mester Murdoch," she proclaimed; "him as I towd yo' on." The little bent figure turned slowly and Murdoch felt himself transfixed by the gaze of a pair of large keen eyes. They had been handsome eyes half a century before, and the wrinkled and seamed face had had its comeliness too. "Tha said he wur a workin' mon," she cried, after a pause. "What did tha tell me that theer fur?" "He _is_ a workin' mon," said Janey. "He's getten his work-cloas on now. Does na tha see 'em?" "Cloas!" announced the Voice again. "Cloas i'deed! A mon is na made out o' cloas. I've seed workin' men afore i' my day, an' I know 'em." Then she extended her hand, crooking the forefinger like a claw, in a beckoning gesture. "Coom tha here," she commanded, "an set thysen down to talk to me." She gave the order in the manner of a female potentate, and Murdoch obeyed her with a sense of overpowering fascination. "Wheer art tha fro'?" she demanded. He made his reply, "From America," as distinct as possible, and was relieved to find that it reached her at once. "'Merica?" she repeated. "I've heerd o' 'Merica often enow. That's wheer th' blacks live, an' th' Indians. I knowed a young chap as went theer, an' th' Indians scalped him. He went theer because I would na ha' him. It wur when I wur a lass." She paused a moment and then said the last words over again, nodding her head with a touch of grim satisfaction. "He went theer because I would na ha' him. It wur when I wur a lass." He was watching her so intently that he was quite startled a second time when she turned her eyes upon him and spoke again, still nodding. "I wur a han'some lass," she said. "I wur a han'some lass--seventy year' ago." It was quite plain that she had been. The thing which was least pleasant about her now was a certain dead and withered suggestion of a beauty of a not altogether sinless order.