Presently she looked up with an April smile. “What a weak, foolish girl you must think me,” she said. “But I have shed my last tear now for ever so long to come. I feel as if there’s not another left for anybody. So, now tell me this: If nobody knows whose child I am, nor where I came from, how is it known that to-day is my nineteenth birthday?” “That is very easily answered. It was on the 14th of November that Mrs. Vane brought you on board the _Pandora_. She told more than one person that you were just six months old, so that, if she spoke the truth, you were born sometime about the 14th of May in the same year, and that was the date which Mr. Matthew afterwards decided should be kept as your birthday.” “So that, besides so many other things, I owe my birthdays to Uncle Matthew. And what happy days they have always been! How I wish he had lived to see the child grow up on whose head he showered so many kindnesses! And now, Tamsin, the next thing I want to know is, who it was that gave me the name of Ethel.” “It was the name Mrs. Vane called you by, so, of course, there was no thought of changing it later on; but whether it was your real name, or only one the poor woman had taken a fancy to call you by, she alone could have told us. But see, there goes Mrs. Lucas Dexter’s carriage! You had better run away now, honey. The bell will be almost sure to ring for me in a minute or two.” It is still the same day. The early dinner is over, and Ethel is again strolling by herself in the grounds. She feels that she wants to be alone. As yet, she can scarcely realise the news her birthday has brought her. As yet, it all seems so strange and incomprehensible. It is as if an earthquake had shaken the foundations of her life, leaving nothing stable or steadfast around her. Her aunts have said that everything is to go on as before, that not a word is to be said to any one. But one exception there must be—she must tell her lover—she must have no secrets from him. Perhaps, when he learns that she is a waif, a child of unknown parentage, and without a home other than that which charity has afforded her, he will—— But no; not even in her inmost thoughts will she so far wrong him as to deem him capable of that. There is a hillock in the grounds, from the summit of which, a stretch of high road leading to the town is visible. More than once she climbs it to look out for her lover. At length she discerns him in the distance and her heart begins to flutter like a frightened bird in its cage. Presently she takes out her handkerchief, and waves it as a signal to him. He sees it and waves his hat in return. Then she runs down the hillock, and so times herself that at the moment he opens the side door, which admits people on foot to the grounds of Vale View, she is there to meet him. CHAPTER X. LAUNCE KEYMER