I was badly burnt, and what handsomeness there was about my face was pretty well scorched out of it by that night's work; and I didn't know anything for a bit. When I come to myself, they had got me into bed bound up with cotton-wool and oil and things. And the first thing I did was to sit up and try to tear them off. 'You'll kill yourself,' says the nurse. 'Thank you,' says I, 'that's the best thing I can do, now Lilian is dead.' And with that the nurse gives a laugh. 'Oh, that's what's on your mind, is it?' says she. 'Doctor said there was something. Miss Lilian had run away that night to her young man. Lucky for her! She's luckier than you, poor thing! And they're married and living in lodgings at Brighton, and she's been over to see you every day.' That day she came again. I lay still and let her thank me for having tried to save her; for the farm men had seen the fire, and had come up in time to see me go up the staircase to her room, and they had pulled me out. She believes to this day the fire was an accident, and that I would have sacrificed my life for her. And so I would; she's right there. I wasn't going to make her unhappy by telling her the real truth, because she was as fond of me as I was of her; and she has been as happy as the day is long, all her life long, and so she deserves. And as for me, I stayed on with uncle at the farm until he died of that bronchitis I told you of, and the little wing was built up again, and the lichen has grown on it, so that now you could hardly tell it is only forty years old; and he left me all his money, and when he died, and Whitecroft went to a distant relation, I came here to do what bits of good I could. And I have never told the truth about this to any one but you. I couldn't have told it to any one as cared, but I know you don't. So that makes it easy. HER MARRIAGE LINES I I HAD never been out to service before, and I thought it a grand thing when I got a place at Charleston Farm. Old Mr. Alderton was close-fisted enough, and while he had the management of the farm it was a place no girl need have wished to come to; but now Mr. Alderton had given up farming this year or two, and young Master Harry, he had the management of everything. Mr. Alderton, he stuck in one room with his books, which he was always fond of above a bit, and must needs be waited on hand and foot, only driving over to Lewes every now and then. Six pounds a year I was to have, and a little something extra at Christmas, according as I behaved myself. It was Master Harry who engaged me. He rode up to our cottage one fine May morning, looking as grand on his big grey horse, and says he, through the stamping clatter of his horse's hoofs on the paved causeway-- 'Are you Deresby's Poll?' says he. And I says, 'Yes; what might you be wanting?'