"Dad!" she called--"Dad, shall I come?" He turned his head towards her. "No, lass, no! Stay where you are, with Robin." He walked slowly, and with evident feebleness, across the length of the field which divided him from the farmhouse garden, and opening the green gate leading thereto, disappeared. The sun-bonneted individual called Priscilla walked or rather waddled towards the hay-waggon, and setting her arms akimbo on her broad hips, looked up with a grin at the young people on top. "Well! Ye're a fine couple up there! What are ye a-doin' of?" "Never mind what we're doing," said Robin, impatiently. "I say, Priscilla, do you think Uncle Hugo is really ill?" Priscilla's face, which was the colour of an ancient nutmeg, and almost as deeply marked with contrasting lines of brown and yellow, showed no emotion. "He ain't hisself," she said, bluntly. "No," said Innocent, seriously,--"I'm sure he isn't." Priscilla jerked her sunbonnet a little further back, showing some tags of dusty grey hair. "He ain't been hisself for this past year," she went on--"Mr. Slowton, bein' only a kind of village physic-bottle, don't know much, an' yer uncle ain't bin satisfied. Now there's another doctor from London staying up 'ere for 'is own poor 'elth, and yer Uncle said he'd like to 'ave 'is opinion,--so Mr. Slowton, bein' obligin' though ignorant, 'as got 'im in to see yer Uncle, and there they both is, in the best parlour, with special wine an' seedies on the table." "Oh, it'll be all right!" said Robin, cheerfully,--"Uncle Hugo is getting old, of course, and he's a bit fanciful." Priscilla sniffed the air. "Mebbe--and mebbe not! What are you two waitin' for now?" "For the men to come back with Roger. Then we'll haul home." "You'll 'ave to wait a bit longer, I'm thinkin'," said Priscilla--"They's all drinkin' beer in the yard now an' tappin' another barrel to drink at when the waggon comes in. There's no animals on earth as ever thirsty as men! Well, good luck t'ye! I must go, or there'll be a smell of burnin' supper-cakes." She settled her sunbonnet anew and trotted away,--looking rather like a large spotted mushroom mysteriously set in motion and rolling, rather than walking, off the field. When she was gone, Innocent sat down again upon the hay, this time without Cupid. He had flown off to join his mates on the farmhouse gables. "Dad is really not well," she said, thoughtfully; "I feel anxious about him. If he were to die,--" At the mere thought her eyes filled with tears. "He must die some day," answered Robin, gently,--"and he's old,--nigh on eighty." "Oh, I don't want to remember that," she murmured. "It's the cruellest part of life--that people should grow old, and die, and pass away from us. What should I do without Dad? I should be all alone, with no one in the world to care what becomes of me." "_I_ care!" he said, softly.