"Perhaps I've taken the wrong road, after all; perhaps I should have turned to the left after passing the mile-stone," mused Ralph. "I wish now that I had inquired the way at the inn, but I thought that I could not miss it. However, it matters little, for here comes a child tripping along the path over yon meadow. She perhaps may be able to tell me the way to the house of John Daines." Ralph leaned over the rough paling which bordered the meadow, and waited till the little girl whom he saw carrying a bundle of fagots should come up to the place where he stood. The child looked poor, but her dress was neat, and her cheeks were as rosy as the flowers which she had stuck in her bosom. "I say, my little friend," began Ralph, as soon as the child could hear him, "is there not a lonely house near this place, with red tiles and a porch, and a poultry-yard behind it?" "I dun no, sir," said the child. "Was there not once such a house on the plot of waste land behind me?" "I dun no," repeated the child, who was scarcely four years old. "I do not seem likely to get much information out of this little one," said Ralph to himself; "but she may know people, though she does not know places.—Does a Mr. Daines live near this spot?" he inquired. The child looked doubtful for a minute, then muttered, "Dun no;" and seemed inclined to pass on. "Wait a bit, little one," said Ralph. "You may perhaps have heard of Mr. Daines as 'Long John,' for he often went by that name!" A gleam of intelligence broke at once over the rosy young face. "Eh! Yes; he be father!" she cried. "Nobody don't call him mister." "Your father!" exclaimed Ralph in surprise; for the speech and dress of the little girl were those of a poor peasant child—not such as might have been expected in one brought up in the comfortable house of his brother. "Do you mean to say that Long John Daines is your father?" The child nodded her head. "And where is he now?" cried Ralph. The little girl raised her sunburnt arm and pointed towards the church which appeared at a little distance. "Can you take me to the place, my little friend? I will help you over the stile, and carry your fagots for you, and you shall have a bright new shilling when we arrive at your home." The eyes of the child brightened. She let the stranger lift her over the stile, and kiss her, and gaze in her face—saying that her eyes were just like her father's. She then tripped merrily along by his side, and in reply to Ralph's questions, told him that her name was Mary, and that sometimes she was called Polly. She did not know whether she had any other name, but she knew that she was Long John's little child, for all the folk knew that. "Where is your mother?" asked Ralph. His brother had not been married when they had parted, twenty years back. "Mother is with father," said Mary. "And is that their home?" inquired Ralph, as he approached a pretty farmhouse which stood a little way back from the road.