"He wur a bad un!" she cried. "He wur a devil! He wur a devil out an' out. I knowed him an' he knowed me." Then she bent forward and touched Miss Ffrench's arm. "Theer wur na a worse un nor a bigger devil nowheer," she said. "An' yo're th' very moral on him." [Illustration: "YO'RE TH' VERY MORAL ON HIM."] Miss Ffrench got up and turned toward the door to speak to Mrs. Briarley, who that moment arrived in great haste carrying the baby, out of breath, and stumbling in her tremor at receiving gentle folk company. "Your visitor has been talking to me," she remarked, her little smile showing itself again. "She says my grandfather was a devil." She answered all Mrs. Briarley's terrified apologies with the same little smile. She had been passing by and had remembered that the housekeeper needed assistance in some matter and it had occurred to her to come in. That was all, and having explained herself, she went away as she had come. "Eh!" fretted Mrs. Briarley, "to think o' that theer owd besom talkin' i' that rood to a lady. That's allus th' way wi' her. She'd mak' trouble anywheer. She made trouble enow when she wur young. She wur na no better than she should be then, an' she's nowt so mich better now." "What's that tha'rt saying?" demanded the Voice. "A noice way that wur fur a lady to go out wi'out so mich as sayin' good-day to a body. She's as loike him as two peas--an' he _wur_ a devil. Here," to Murdoch, "pick up that theer flower she's dropped." Murdoch turned to the place she pointed out. The white flower lay upon the flagged floor. He picked it up and handed it to her with a vague recognition of the powerfulness of its fragrance. She took it and sat mumbling over it. "It's th' very same," she muttered. "He used to wear 'em i' his button-hole when he coom. An' she's th' very moral on him." CHAPTER XIII. MR. FFRENCH VISITS THE WORKS. There were few men in Broxton or the country surrounding it who were better known than Gerard Ffrench. In the first place, he belonged, as it were, to Broxton, and his family for several generations back had belonged to it. His great-grandfather had come to the place a rich man and had built a huge house outside the village, and as the village had become a town the Ffrenchs had held their heads high. They had confined themselves to Broxton until Gerard Ffrench took his place. They had spent their lives there and their money. Those who lived to remember the youth and manhood of the present Ffrench's father had, like Granny Dixon, their stories to tell. His son, however, was a man of a different mold. There were no evil stories of him. He was a well-bred and agreeable person and lived a refined life. But he was a man with tastes which scarcely belonged to his degree. "I ought to have been born in the lower classes and have had my way to make," he had been heard to say.