She looked at me quite curiously. Doubtless that word sounds a little queer on my lips, but that shall not deter me from using it when the circumstances seem to require. Besides, there was once a time--But there, I promised to fall into no digressions. "You should have been married yourself, Miss Butterworth," said she. I was amazed, first at her daring, and secondly that I was so little angry at this sudden turning of the tables upon myself. But then the woman meant no offence, rather intended a compliment. "I am very well contented as I am," I returned. "_I_ am neither sickly nor timid." She smiled, looked as if she thought it only common politeness to agree with me, and tried to say so, but finding the situation too much for her, coughed and discreetly held her peace. I came to her rescue with a new question: "Have the women of the Knollys family ever been successful in love? The mother of these girls, say--she who was Miss Althea Burroughs--was her life with her husband happy? I have always been curious to know. She and I were schoolmates." "You were? You knew Althea Knollys when she was a girl? Wasn't she charming, ma'am? Did you ever see a livelier girl or one with more knack at winning affection? Why, she couldn't sit down with you a half-hour before you felt like sharing everything you had with her. It made no difference whether you were man or woman, it was all the same. She had but to turn those mischievous, pleading eyes upon you for you to become a fool at once. Yet her end was sad, ma'am; too sad, when you remember that she died at the very height of her beauty alone and in a foreign land. But I have not answered your question. Were she and the judge happy together? I have never heard to the contrary, ma'am. I'm sure he mourned her faithfully enough. Some think that her loss killed him. He did not survive her more than three years." "The children do not favor her much," said I, "but I see an expression now and then in Lucetta which reminds me of her mother." "They are all Knollys," said she. "Even William has traits which, with a few more brains back of them, would remind you of his grandfather, who was the plainest of his race." I was glad that the talk had reverted to William. "He seems to lack heart, as well as brains," I said. "I marvel that his sisters put up with him as well as they do." "They cannot help it. He is not a fellow to be fooled with. Besides, he holds third share in the house. If they could sell it! But, deary me, who would buy an old tumble-down place like that, on a road you cannot get folks who have any consideration for their lives to enter for love or money? But excuse me, ma'am; I forgot that you are living just now on that very road. I'm sure I beg a thousand pardons." "I am living there as a guest," I returned. "I have nothing to do with its reputation--except to brave it."