“It is about that person, the governess, that I have come to inquire,” said Francis. “I have reason to believe--I may say that I am almost sure--she is my cousin; very near and very dear to me. Pray tell me all you can about her. I am a rich man, and I am looking for my cousin, who has a better claim than I have to the money that has lately come to me. Pray tell me everything; you shall not find me ungrateful. I will make it well worth your while to help me in this matter.” It might be supposed that Mrs. Burfield, being ground into the very dust by the iron heel of poverty, would brighten a little on hearing this promising speech: but she did nothing of the kind; she only sighed rather more plaintively than usual, and remarked somewhat irrelevantly that her boys were beginning to grow up now, and the boots they knocked out, and the way they wore their things at the knees and elbows, were something awful. “Tell me all you can about my cousin,” urged Mr. Tredethlyn. “Ah, you don’t know how long I have been away from England, and how eager I am to find that poor desolate girl. Pray tell me all you know, and quickly.” “It’s a long story,” said Mrs. Burfield, in the very words used by the grocer--“it’s a long story, and goodness knows the rights or the wrongs of it; but if you are her cousin,--and you are, I suppose----” “I do not think there can be any doubt of it,” Francis Tredethlyn answered eagerly; “I do not think there can be any doubt that the person of whom I have heard this morning was my cousin, Susan Tredethlyn.” “The young person to whom _I_ allude called herself Susan Turner.” “Yes, yes. It is only natural she should change her name. She left her home because she had been very much persecuted there. She was no doubt afraid of being taken back, and was anxious to hide herself under a false name.” “If I had known that she had come to me under a false name, never would she have slept a night in this house,” exclaimed Mrs. Burfield, with something between a sigh and a shudder. “She was a good and honest girl, under whatever name she came to you,” answered Francis Tredethlyn; “but pray tell me the story.” But Mrs. Burfield could not immediately comply with this request; she had to go into the kitchen first, to see that “the girl” was basting some mutton that was being roasted for a very fastidious “front parlour,” who had a rooted objection to baked meats; and then she had to go out into a little area, in which the window looked out, and to hold parley with some person above, who dropped her down divers loaves, and disputed with her as to a certain “twopenny German” which had been had, or had not been had, on the previous Tuesday. At last, however, she was able to seat herself opposite poor Francis, and to begin her story, from the narration of which she seemed to derive a dismal kind of enjoyment.