Rushing out of hearing of Molly's vindictive answer, I went round through the snow to the yard, and found the woman meekly tapping at the kitchen-door--the old red shawl, and the black bonnet, and the white muslin cap border, all the same as before. Before I got quite up, the kitchen-door was cautiously drawn open, and Mrs. Todhetley looked out. The poor old woman dropped a curtsy and held out half-a-crown on the palm of her withered hand. "I've made bold to call at the door to leave it, lady. And I can never thank you enough, ma'am," she added, the tears rising to her eyes; "my tongue would fail if I tried it. 'Tis not many as would have trusted a stranger; and, that, a poor body like me. I got over to Worcester quick and comfortable, ma'am, thanks to you, and found my daughter better nor I had hoped for." The same feeling of reliance, of trust, arose within me as I saw her face and heard her voice and words. If this woman was what they had been fancying her, I'd never eat tarts again. "Come in," said Mrs. Todhetley; and Molly, looking daggers as she heard it, approached her mistress with a whisper. "Don't, ma'am. It's all a laid-out plan. She has heard that she's suspected, and brings back the half-crown, thinking to put us off the scent." "Step this way," went on Mrs. Todhetley, giving no heed to Molly, except by a nod--and she took the woman into the little store-room where she kept her jam-pots and things, and bade her go to the fire. "What did you tell me your name was," she asked, "when you were here on Friday?" "Nutt'n, ma'am." "Nutten," repeated the mater, glancing at me. "But I sent over to Islip, and no one there knew anything about you--they denied that any one of your name lived there." "Why, how could they do that?" returned the woman, with every appearance of surprise. "They must have mistook somehow. I live in the little cottage, ma'am, by the dung-heap. I've lived there for five-and-twenty year, and brought up my children there, and never had parish pay." "And gone always by the name of Nutten?" "Not never by no other, ma'am. Why should I?" Was she to be believed? There was the half-crown in Mrs. Todhetley's hand, and there was the honest wrinkled old face looking up at us openly. But, on the other side, there was the assertion of the Islip people; and there was the earring. "What was the matter with your daughter, and in what part of Worcester does she live?" queried the mater. "She's second servant to a family in Melcheapen Street, ma'am, minds the children and does the beds, and answers the door, and that. When I got there--and sick enough my heart felt all the way, thinking what the matter could be--I found that she had fell from the parlour window that she'd got outside to clean, and broke her arm and scarred her face, and frighted and shook herself finely. But thankful enough I was that 'twas no worse. Her father, ma'am, died of an accident, and I can never abear to hear tell of one."