'O, he's well enough, Miss Darrell. Naught's never in danger.--Peter, come here, and see the young ladies.' A poor, feeble, pale-faced, semi-idiotic-looking boy came slowly out of the dark little bedroom, and stood grinning at us. He had the white sickly aspect of a creature reared without the influence of air and light; and I pitied him intensely as he stood there staring and grinning in that dreadful hopeless manner. 'Poor Peter!' He's no better, I'm afraid,' said Milly gently. 'No, miss, nor never will be. He knows more than people think, and has queer cunning ways of his own; but he'll never be any better or wiser than he is now.' 'Not if you were to take as much pains with him as you do with the patients who pay you, Mrs. Thatcher?' asked Milly. 'I've taken pains with him,' answered the woman, with a scowl. 'I took to him kindly enough when he was a little fellow; but he's grown up to be nothing but a plague and a burden to me.' The boy left off grinning, and his poor weak chin sank lower on his narrow chest. His attitude had been a stooping one from the first; but he drooped visibly under the old woman's reproof. 'Can he employ himself in no way?' 'No, miss; except in picking the herbs and roots for me sometimes. He can do that, and he knows one from t'other.' 'He's of some use to you, at any rate, then,' said Milly. 'Little enough,' the old woman answered sulkily. 'I don't want help; I've plenty of time to gather them myself. But I've taught him to pick them, and it's the only thing he ever could learn.' 'Poor fellow! He's your only grandchild, isn't he, Mrs. Thatcher?' 'Yes, he's the only one, miss, and he'd need be. I don't know how I should keep another. You can't remember my daughter Ruth? She was as pretty a girl as you'd care to see. She was housemaid at Cumber priory in Mrs. Egerton's time, and she married the butler. They set up in business in a little public-house in Thornleigh village, and he took to drinking, till everything went to rack and ruin. My poor girl took the trouble to heart more than her husband did, a great deal; and I believe it was the trouble that killed her. She died three weeks after that boy was born, and her husband ran away the day after the funeral, and has never been heard of since. Some say he drowned himself in the Clem; but he was a precious deal too fond of himself for that. He was up to his eyes in debt, and didn't leave a sixpence behind him; that's how Peter came to be thrown on my hands.' 'Come here, Peter,' said Milly softly; and the boy went to her directly, and took the hand she offered him. 'You've not forgotten me, have you, Peter? Miss Darrell, who used to talk to you sometimes a long time ago.' The boy's vacant face brightened into something like intelligence. 'I know you, miss,' he said; 'you was always kind to Peter. It's not many that I know; but I know you.' She took out her purse and gave him half-a-crown.