"You can hold 'em if you like, but he won't do nothin'," returned Jehu. And dashing round the corner of the house, he left Rotha to her meditations. All was still, only the birds were full of songs and pouring them out on all sides; from every tree and bush came a warble or a twitter or a whistle of ecstasy. The gleeful tones half stole into Rotha's heart; yet on the whole her spirit thermometer was sinking. The place had the neglected air of a place where nobody lives, and that has always a depressing effect. Her charioteer's absence was prolonged, too; which of itself was not cheering. At last he came dashing round the corner again. "Guess it's all right," he said. "But you'll have to git down, fur's I see; I can't git you no nearer, and she won't come to the front door. They don't never open it, ye see. So they says." Rotha descended, and bag in hand followed the boy, who piloted her round the corner of the house and along a weedy walk overhung with lilacs and syringas and overgrown rosebushes, until they were near another corner. The house seemed to be square on the ground. "There!" said he,--"you go jist roun' there, and you'll see the kitchen door--leastways the shed; and so you'll git in. Mrs. Purcell is there." "Who is Mrs. Purcell?" said Rotha stopping. "I d'n' know; she's the woman what stops here; her and Joe Purcell. She's Joe Purcell's wife. I'll git your trunk out, but you must send some un roun' to fetch it, you see." Rotha turned the second corner, while the boy went back; and a few steps more brought her round to the back of the house, where there was a broad space neatly paved with small cobble stones. An out-jutting portion of the building faced her here, and a door in the sane. This must be the "shed," though it had not really that character. Rotha went in. It seemed to be a small outer kitchen. At the house side an open ladder of steps led up to another door. Going up, Rotha came into the kitchen proper. A fire was burning in the wide chimney, and an old-fashioned dresser opposite held dishes and tins. Between dresser and fire stood a woman, regarding Rotha as she came in with a consideration which was more curious than gracious. Rotha on her part looked eagerly at her. She was a tall woman, very well formed; not very neatly dressed, for her sleeves were worn at the elbows, and a strip torn from her skirt and not torn off, dangled on the floor. The dress was of some dark stuff, too old to be of any particular colour. But what struck Rotha immediately was, that the woman was not a white woman. Very light she was, undoubtedly, and of a clear good colour, but she had not the fair tint of the white races. Red shewed in her cheeks, through the pale olive of them; and her hair, black and crinkly, was not crisp but long, and smoothly combed over her temples. She was a very handsome woman; a fact which Rotha did not perceive at first, owing to a dark scowl which drew her eyebrows