“Not I, for I forgot to ax it, and Mrs. Ironside forgot to tell it. What a ninny she would think me for not minding her she had forgot! But perhaps the unhappy lady is keeping it close, though we cannot let that be; we cannot manage a bill without a name, can we now, Mrs. Barlowe?” “I think we might,” Lady Bell re-assured the mistress of the house. “And had you heard tell afore of that thief of the wood, Squire Godwin?” inquired Miss Kingscote, reverting to a point which had struck her in her companion’s speech. “I had heard of him; would that I had not,” admitted Lady Bell, wincing. “But madam, he was not a common swindler and cheat—not to my knowledge. He was a hardened gambler, and a wickedly callous gentleman, that was all.” “I reckon it was the worser of the two, with the devil to pay atween them,” asserted Miss Kingscote rather severely for her. “I am a born lady, I am, but I count them ruffians of the green boards and race-courses, as may yet turn out the light pockets of my boy and shake ’em emptier of Nutfield than ever our uncle Mat shook ’em, a dratted deal worse than a highwayman, or a housebreaker that may be catched in the act, and wear a hempen collar at Tyburn or nigher hand any day.” “I suppose we must leave both spendthrifts and wicked uncles to their deserts,” said Lady Bell. “Why are uncles worse than other relations, I wonder?” she speculated. “Because of them blessed Babes in the Wood,” answered Miss Kingscote glibly. “Miss Kingscote, let us try to comfort the poor young madam, with her worse than fatherless babe,” suggested Lady Bell, as she conjured up a host of pensive recollections. “Ay, ay; I expect you two will be as thick as peas,” said Miss Kingscote, nodding confidentially. The lady arrived that very evening to supper. She had posted from town to Lumley; she had heard there that lodgings were provided for her by the mayor, who was the son of a former bailiff in her family, and had come straight on, in the chaise, with her child and attendant. Miss Kingscote, who was apt to be in a muddle, and never ready for anything, was, as she described it, “slipping” into her best gown. Master Charles was out. “Oh, the dickens! the dickens! What ever is to be done?” cried Miss Kingscote to Mrs. Barlowe. “Run like a lovey, you are always as neat as though you’d been lifted out of a box, and wait on madam at the coach door. Say we’re main glad to see her, which we beant not yet awhile; but them’s the words. Help her out; take the child, and call it a pretty lamb. The mother won’t go and mind ceremony then. I wouldn’t for my life she did mind, ’cause of the mayor’s people. See the whole set to their rooms, Mrs. Barlowe. Swear the beds are aired, the fire will be lit as soon as we can say Jack Robinson, and we ain’t at the mercy of bugs. I’ll be there to bid madam make herself at home in a trice.”