He found her sitting under a cedar which Evelyn of Wootton had planted with his own hands, an enduring evidence of that accomplished gentleman's friendship for Squire Bosworth's grandfather. She was not alone, but, instead of her usual companion and governess, she had Mrs. Bridget, the nurse, who was sitting on a little wooden stool, knitting a stocking, while Irene sat on the grass close by, with an open book in her lap. Now it happened that, next to Irene herself, Bridget, the nurse, was the person whom Herrick most ardently desired to see. "Can I sell you a book, ladies?" he began in his feigned voice, standing a little way off, and opening his pack. "Here is _Gulliver's Travels_, the most wonderful book that was ever written, the book all the great folks in London were mad about last winter; and here is _Robinson Crusoe_, and _The History of the Plague_, and--" But Irene had started, to her feet. Disguise his complexion, hide his eyes, alter his voice as he might, she knew him. She would have known him anywhere, and under even stranger conditions. The electricity of true love flashed from his soul to hers. "Herrick!" she cried, "it is you!" Mrs. Bridget also rose with a troubled air; but Irene laid a restraining hand upon her nurse's arm. "You won't tell anybody, you'll let us talk to each other a little while?" she pleaded; and then in her most caressing manner, "you can hear all we say. I have no secrets from you, dear old Bridget." "I'll warrant Mrs. Bridget would hardly swear so much on her side," said Herrick, with a lurking significance in his tone. "When people come to your nurse's age, Irene, they are apt to have a secret or two, be they ever so honest." "Nay, I'll vouch for it, my Bridget has no secrets from me," protested the girl, hanging on her nurse's ample shoulder. The nurse turned and kissed her darling, but answered not a word. "And so you knew me at once, Irene; what an eagle eye you have!" "If you had come as a blackamoor, I should have known you just as easily," she answered gaily; "and to change your voice too, and speak in those queer gruff tones, and think to cheat me! What a foolish person you must be!" They seated themselves side by side on a rustic bench, while Bridget resumed her stool and her knitting at a discreet distance. "What has become of your governess?" asked Herrick.