"Never more so. Why not? I had meant to make you and London a present of her for the winter: if you go abroad, so much the better. It will be the greater change for her--and she needs change." "I shall certainly no longer hesitate if I may have Ella," spoke Mrs. Carlyon, gladly. "But--I should probably stay away four or five months." "If you stay away six months it would be all the better. To tell you the truth, Gertrude," he continued, seeing Mrs. Carlyon look surprised, "I do not intend my pretty one to be here during the dark months, and you must take her out of my hands. She has never been quite the same since that curious affair up yonder"--pointing over his shoulder in the direction of the north wing. Mrs. Carlyon began to understand. "You mean--about Katherine Keen?" "Ay. Since the girl disappeared----" "What a most extraordinary thing that was!" interrupted Mrs. Carlyon. "Can you in any way account for it, Squire?" "There's no way at all of accounting for it. Bodikins, no!" "I meant, have you any private theory of your own--as to what can have become of her?" "I know no more what could have become of her than _that_," returned the Squire, touching his stick, and then striking it on the ground to enforce emphasis. "It has troubled me above a bit, Gertrude, I can tell you. She was as nice and inoffensive a young girl as could be. Only the day before she disappeared she ran all across the garden to me to put my umbrella up, because a drop or two of rain began to fall. You can't think what a modest, kind, good little thing she was." "I always thought it," assented Mrs. Carlyon. "And I esteem her mother; she is so hard-working and respectable. What a trial it must have been for her, poor woman! I shall call and see her before I leave." "Ay. Why not? Well, it is altogether a very mysterious and unpleasant thing to have happened in this old house, and my pretty lassie, I see, does not forget it. She seems to mope, and to get a bit melancholy now and then. I fancy her eyes are not so bright as they used to be; she doesn't talk so much, or sing so much about the house. It's just as if there was always something hanging over her." "Of course she must have a change," spoke Mrs. Carlyon. "She was all the better for her visit to London in spring, but she was not long enough away," went on the Squire. "You know how lonely we are here. My health won't allow of my seeing much company, and Ella doesn't seem to care about extending her acquaintances. It will be horribly dull for her here this winter, with nobody in the house but a sick and cantankerous old man. I wish she could get right away out of England for six or eight months. She would come back to us next spring as merry as a blackbird. Why not, now?" "I need not say how glad I should be to take Ella with me," said Mrs. Carlyon. "But there's one question--would she go?--would she leave you?"