“He’s gone over to Devonshire with the young lady, his step-mother. Perhaps you might tell your business to me; I know all Mr. Guy’s affairs.” “If I might come in, ma’am, and warm me,” grandpa answered, meekly, as through the open door he caught glimpses of a cheerful fire. “It’s mighty chilly for such as me.” He did look cold and blue, Mrs. Noah thought, and she bade him come in, feeling a very little contempt for the old-fashioned camlet cloak in which his feet became entangled, and smiling inwardly at the shrunken, faded pantaloons, betokening poverty. “As you know all Squire Guy’s affairs,” grandpa said, when he was seated before the fire, “maybe you could tell whether he would be likely to lend a stranger three hundred dollars, and that stranger me?” Mrs. Noah stared at him aghast. Was he crazy, or did he mean to insult her master? Evidently neither. He seemed as sane as herself, while no one could associate an insult with him. He did not know anything. That was the solution of his audacity, and pityingly, as she would have addressed a half idiot, Mrs. Noah made him understand how impossible it was for him to think her master would lend money to a stranger like him. “You say he’s gone to Devonshire,” grandpa said, softly, with a quiver on his lip, when she had finished. “I wish I’d knew it; I left my granddarter there to be examined. Maybe I’ll meet him going back, and can ask him.” “I tell you it won’t be any use. Mr. Guy has no three hundred dollars to throw away,” was Mrs. Noah’s sharp rejoinder. “Wall, wall, we won’t quarrel about it,” the old man replied in his most conciliatory manner, as he turned his head away to hide the starting tear. Grandfather Markham’s heart was very sore, and Mrs. Noah’s harshness troubled him. He could not bear to think that she really was cross with him; besides that, he wanted something to take to Maddy besides disappointment, so by way of testing Mrs. Noah’s amiability and pleasing Maddy too, he said as he arose, “I’m an old man, lady, old enough to be your father.” Here Mrs. Noah’s face grew brighter, and she listened attentively while he continued. “You won’t take what I say amiss, I’m sure. I have a little girl at home, a grandchild, who has heard big stories of the fine things at Aikenside. She has a hankerin’ after such vanities, and it would please her mightily to have me tell her what I saw up here, so maybe you wouldn’t mind lettin’ me go into that big room where the silk fixin’s are and the tall lookin’ glass. I’ll take off my shoes, if you say so.” “Your shoes won’t hurt an atom; come right along,” Mrs. Noah replied, now in the best of moods, for except her cup of green tea with raspberry jam and cream, she enjoyed nothing more than showing her master’s handsome house, in which she had lived so long that, in a way, she considered it her own.