Mrs. Carlyon said no more then. She heartily wished her sojourn at Heron Dyke was at an end, that she might return to her own more comfortable home. For, in her opinion, the atmosphere of the Hall was not comfortable. Of that dark north wing she had a wholesome dread, as well as of the lost girl's spirit which was supposed to haunt it. To her niece she did not speak of this: but she and Mrs. Toynbee--who was very poorly at this time and kept much to her own chamber--talked confidentially together, and agreed that matters altogether were more doubtful than they ought to be. "This is a queer thing, Miss Ella, that folks down at Nullington are whispering to one another," exclaimed Aaron, overtaking his mistress one afternoon in the new conservatory. "What is it that they are whispering?" she turned to ask. "About that Captain Lennox. If 'twas him that robbed the Hall, then he must have been the villain who destroyed my poor boy. Ah, ma'am, but it's a terrible world!" "I fear some of us find it so, Aaron." "To think of it! Captain Lennox! But I never liked him, ma'am. I never liked that sharp, foxy face of his." Ella mentally wondered whom the old man had liked. "I mistrusted him, Miss Ella, from the first time I saw him. When a man talks to you so soft and silky-like, as the Captain did, and at the same time fixes you with such a pair of cruel, hungry-looking eyes, it is best to have nothing to do with him. I set such a man down as dangerous." Miss Winter had herself always felt a secret distrust of Lennox, without knowing the reason why. Perhaps, as Aaron had said, it was the contrast between his smooth, dulcet tones, and the expression in his cold, hard-set glances: any way, she had never taken cordially to Captain Lennox. "Your wife seems but poorly to-day, Aaron," resumed Miss Winter, purposely quitting the other subject. "She's a bigger ninny than ever," retorted Aaron, in an explosive tone. "I beg pardon ma'am; but the old woman be enough to wear one's patience out." Dorothy Stone seemed to live in a chronic state of fear. What was it that she was afraid of, her husband would angrily ask her--and the most he could make of her trembling answers was, that she was afraid of the "ghosts." Heron Dyke had become a fearsome place, she would say: any night she might meet Katherine Keen in the passages; or, maybe, the dead Squire. Aaron, quite beside himself with wrath at all this, threatened to shake her: but the threat made no visible impression. Miss Winter would reason with her now and again; but the old woman's life had become a trouble to herself. What little pleasure (a sadly negative one) she ever found in it, was when she recalled all her grandson's perfections, and her past love for him. To this she found sympathising listeners in the maids.