"Ay, sir,—'tis true. But she's more changed than I'd have thought possible. Twenty-seven years it is now since she went to furrin parts with little Miss Katherine and her father,—and she was a right-down pretty creature, and no mistake, was our Molly. And if so be, as folks said, that she saved little Miss Katherine's life, sir, I'm glad it was so. All the same, it did go agin the grain with me—uncommon agin the grain it went!—Molly getting herself trained for a nurse, when this might have been her home all along. And then going off as she did, all of a suddent, to Canada, without ever seeing of us agen. I misdoubt but Phil Morris wasn't the best of husbands. She's seen a lot of trouble, she has—judgin' from her look." The Squire was silent and motionless. "But it seems like as if she couldn't abear now to speak to me of the past,—no, not yet of her husband, Phil Morris. Nor she won't hear him blamed. 'Let bygones be bygones,' says she. Only she's told how good you've been, sir, all these years, letting her have that house in Norfolk, dirt-cheap. I'm sure, if ever I'd guessed—but there!—how was I to know, when she'd never so much as wrote word to me that she was a widow, nor was back in Old England? Nor you never spoke of her to me neither, sir!" There was a note of inquiry, a suggestion of reproach, in the last words. Mr. Stirling dismounted. "It was hardly my place to inform you, if she did not wish to do so herself," he said gravely. "I was not likely to forget her care of my niece; and she has been welcome to any help I could give. Would you call someone to hold my horse? Thanks,"—as the farmer took the reins,—"I'll find my way in." He walked up the narrow flagged path, bordered by such homely flowers as double daisies, pinks, and sweet-williams. Before he could ring the door opened, and a girl stood there—fair-skinned and grey-eyed, with short brown hair curling closely over her head. She had a fragile look; and the small hands were almost transparent. A shy upward glance welcomed him. "How do you do, Winnie? Better than you used to be? You don't seem quite at your best." "I'm much the same, thank you, sir." "Rheumatism bad still?" He gazed down on her with kind concern. "Yes, sir. It's no good me minding. Mother's in." She led him to a long narrow sitting-room, crowded with old-fashioned heavy furniture. Oak-beams crossed at intervals the low-pitched ceiling; and an aged spinnet stood in one corner. The woman who rose to meet him must have been at least fifty, perhaps more. She was stout, unsmiling, blunt in manner, with features which might in girlhood have been well-shaped. But the complexion was muddy; the face was hard and deeply lined; she dressed badly; and the frizzling of her iron-grey hair into a fringe gave a tinge of commonness, which found its echo in the timbre of her voice. "How do you do, Mrs. Morris?" "How do you do, Mr. Stirling?"