"She be sleepin' too long; I'll go and waken her in a minute," said Mrs. Darke. "'Tis but right she should be told what's come to 'er tree, poor thing." Then a beggar woman selling bootlaces came along the shore of the river; she mounted the cottage steps and the gossips watched her trailing up the pathway in her loose old shoes, and knocking at the door. She waited for a few minutes: there was no answer, so she turned away resignedly and trailed off along the sun-lit lane, in-shore, leaving the garden gate swinging to and fro. "There's summat the matter!" Mrs. Darke had just whispered with evident enjoyment, when some one else was seen approaching the cottage from the direction of the pier. It was the young lady from the Manor, this time. She wore a white dress and a green scarf, and her face was tinted with colour. She looked like a young blossoming tree herself, all lacy white and pale green, a strange morning vision in a work-a-day world! Robinette ran quickly up the pathway and knocked at the door, but there was no answer to her knock. She called out in her clear voice:-- "Good morning, Nurse! Good morning! Aren't you ready to let me in? It's quite late!" But there was no answer to her call. She was just trying to open the door, which seemed to be locked, when a gentleman came up from the boat and followed her to the cottage. That, the women who were watching her thought quite natural, for surely such a young lady would be followed by a lover wherever she went! Indeed, Mrs. Darke said so. "'Tis in that there kind," she observed philosophically, "like the cuckoo and the bird that follows; never sees one wi'out the other!" "'Tis quite that way, Mrs. Darke," agreed the neighbour, approvingly. Robinette turned a white face to Lavendar as he approached. "Nurse won't answer, and I can't get in!" she cried. "Something must have happened. I--I'm afraid to go in alone. The door is locked, too." "It's not locked," said Lavendar, and exerting a little strength, he pushed it open and gave a quick glance inside. "I'll go in first," he said gently. "Wait here." He came again to the threshold in a few minutes, a peculiar expression on his face which somehow seemed to tell Robinette what had happened. "Come in, Mrs. Robin," he said very gravely and gently. "You need not be afraid." Robinette instinctively held out her hand to him and they entered the little room together. She need not have feared for the old woman's distress over the ruined plum tree, for nothing would ever grieve Nurse Prettyman again. Just as she had lain down the night before, she lay upon her bed now, having passed away in her sleep. "And they that encounter Death in sleep," says the old writer, "go forth to meet him with desire." The aged face was turned slightly upwards and wore a look of contentment and repose that made life seem almost gaudy; a cheap thing to compare with this attainment....