“You—you’ll excuse me, gentleman,” he said. “It came kind o’ suddin, that’s all is the matter with me. Old Joe’s had a hard winter of it, ye see, never hearin’ a word of his young lady, let alone seein’ her, as every day he done sence Giles was laid away, till this winter. He’s had a hard time of it, Joe has, and all the way down he’s been thinkin’, suppose somethin’ had happened to my young lady. She’s well, you said, gentleman?” He turned suddenly, and his glance was like a sword. “No, you didn’t say so, but yet you spoke as if—she’s well, Isly is?” The trustee nodded quickly. “Yes, Joseph; she is perfectly well,” he said. “A very lovely girl, your young lady, and we are all very fond of her here. Now you want to see her, I am sure, and here is the door opening. I will send for the children at once.” The trustee would have liked to stay a few minutes to ask this queer retainer a question or two about the Heron children and their people; but the eagerness of the man was so piteous, his attempts to conceal it so hopeless, that the kind trustee had mercy. Besides, James had opened the door, only to fall into a kind of fit at sight of his goblin of the past summer. He was now behind the door, holding it well between him and the strange visitor, and admonishing his favourite saints, in a terrified gabble, to stand by him now and save him from being pixy-rid. But Joe had no eyes now for James, or anybody his like. He had found a gentleman, and the gentleman was going to take him to his young lady; this was enough to fill Joe’s world very full, and he only fixed, in passing, a vacant stare on the unhappy porter, which sent cold shivers down the latter’s back, and made him feel that he had got the evil eye on him this time, and no mistake. The trustee passed on up the wide staircase, Joe following humbly at his heels, keeping step exactly, and standing motionless whenever he paused for a moment. The man’s action was so exactly that of a good dog, that the trustee turned round once or twice on the way up, to make sure that his follower was indeed human. But suddenly Joe paused, with a broken exclamation. “There now! there now! I want to know if I forgot that! I want to know if I did, after all my plannin’ and contrivin’.” The trustee turned round, and saw his companion fumbling awkwardly in his breast. He drew out a small object wrapped in coarse brown paper, and held it out with a piteous look. “See here! gentleman,” he said. “I meant to send this to Isly first; that’s what I meant to do. I meant to send it in by the putty-faced feller, and tell how the man that brought it was there, and had more where that came from.” He unfolded the paper with trembling fingers, and held out the goldstone brooch. “That’s handsome, ain’t it?” he said, anxiously. “That’s handsome enough for a young lady like Isly, ain’t it, gentleman? That’s what ladies wear, round in city parts?” The trustee examined the brooch gravely.