So they were troubled in secret until a sudden and amazing solution to the great problem came within a week of ‘Corban’s’ exit. The only apparent way to be Ted’s wife was opened through lying, and Milly rose to the necessary heights of untruth without a pang. She felt that good must come of her evil conduct—good not only to herself, but to her unhappy father. His bereavement had cost him dear. He still preserved a great, tragical silence, but from time to time hinted of far-reaching deeds when his foot should be strong enough to bear him up. There came a day when Milly walked to Princetown, and, entering into the house of certain friends there, rubbed her eyes and stood astounded and open-mouthed before the spectacle of ‘Corban.’ It was no feline apparition that she saw, but a live cat, with bold tabby markings of alternate rabbit-brown and black—a cat with strong, flat nose, cold and healthy; four good, well-defined tiers of whisker on either side of his countenance; green eyes, that twinkled like the twin lamps of a little train when seen by night, and a tail of just proportion and brave carriage. “Lard save us!” cried Milly; “however did ’e come by this here cat, Mrs. Veale? I had Mr. Oldreive’s own sacred word as he’d shutt un dead an’ buried un onder his apple tree.” “That’s our butivul puss; an’ you should knaw how us come by it if anybody do, my dear, for you bringed it here in a basket from Postbridge when you was a li’l maid six year agone.” Milly’s active mind was working too rapidly to allow of any reply for some moments. Then she told Mrs. Veale of the recent tribulation at home, and in ten minutes an obvious plot was hatched between them. “’Tis a peace-loving cat, an’ if you butter its paws an’ treat it a bit generous in the matter of food, ’twill very likely settle down along with you. Of course, you shall have un for such a Christian purpose as to bring them two dear auld men together again. An’ the more cheese you can spare un, the more like he is to bide with you.” So Mrs. Veale; and Milly answered:— “‘Corban’ was fond o’ cheese, tu, an’ his mother afore him! ’Twas a family failing, no doubt.” She scanned the cat narrowly and it mistook her attention for admiration, and purred in a soft, guttural, elderly way, and bent itself into a bow against her knee and showed much natural goodness. “So like t’other as two peas!” declared Milly, not remembering that she had made exactly the same remark when this cat and its late brother were born. “Faither’s sight ban’t strong enough to part ’em if awnly this one behaves well,” she added.