"Not so far as that, sir--not so far as that," said Harry Martin; "but, nevertheless, you shall be welcome to stay if you like it. I know I can trust you; but the women did not know who you were, and they are in a sad fright about me, poor things! I had left them, for an hour or two, to go and look out for news; but my poor wife could not be satisfied, and as I did not come so soon as she expected, went away to meet me, leaving the boy with his grandmother. The poor old woman was so tired with all our dodging about for the last two or three days, that she fell asleep by the fire, and the boy strayed away after a will-o-the-wisp, or something of that kind, I suppose. But come, Sir Morley, if you like to stay with us, we will do the best we can for you, though what you call a cottage is but a hovel, and that the two women must have. There are some pitmen's cottages, however, two miles further up on the moor; but between you and I, bad as they call me, you may rest more safely with me than with them." "I will stay by your fire, Martin," said Morley, dismounting and leading his horse back; and in a few minutes more, after some formalities and introductions of a particular kind, he was seated in what may be called Harry Martin's domestic circle, and in full conversation with him, his wife, and mother-in-law. He perceived that the elder woman looked at him hard from time to time, and at length she said--"I was stupid not to know you, Sir Morley, for you are so like your father. There is something of your mother, too, about the eyes, but you are more like your father." "I suppose you knew my father well, then?" answered Morley, looking at her steadfastly, in order to see whether he could trace in her worn, but still fine features, the countenance of any of the dependents of his family whom he had known in youth. It was in vain that he did so, however; the face of the old woman was quite unknown to him, as her reply soon showed him that it must be. "Ay, I did know him well," replied the old woman, "and a good man he was. I wish I had always followed what he told me. It is now about eighteen years since I saw him, and then he said, very truly, that those who seek riches by wrong means, are sure to find poverty straight on their road." "I certainly am sorry that you did not take his advice," said Morley; "but I trust you were led to do nothing very wrong in opposition to his counsel." "Tut, nonsense, granny!" cried Harry Martin; "you are doting with your old stories. What wrong did you ever do, if it was not letting me marry your daughter? You were as good an old body as ever lived, and as thriving a one, too, after you came back from India, till both mother and daughter, I believe, fell in love with a scapegrace like myself."