"My dear wife, that boy of hers is aggravating her. Don't be too hard upon her." "My dear husband," said Mrs. Buckley, "I have no patience with her, to welcome an old friend, whom she has not seen for nearly twenty years, in that manner! It is too provoking." "You see, my love," said the Major, "that her nerves have been very much shaken by misfortune, and at times she is really not herself." "And I tell you what, mother dear," said Sam, "Charles Hawker is going on very badly. I tell you, in the strictest confidence, mind, that he has not behaved in a very gentlemanlike way in one particular, and if he was anyone else but who he is, I should have very little to say to him." "Well, my dear husband and son," said Mrs. Buckley, "I will go in and make the AMENDE to her. Sam, go and see after the Dean." Sam went out, and saw Frank across the yard playing with the dogs. He was going towards him, when a man entering the yard suddenly came up and spoke to him. It was William Lee--grown older, and less wildlooking, since we saw him first at midnight on Dartmoor, but a striking person still. His hair had become grizzled, but that was the only sign of age he showed. There was still the same vigour of motion, the same expression of enormous strength about him as formerly; the principal change was in his face. Eighteen years of honest work, among people who in time, finding his real value, had got to treat him more as a friend than a servant, had softened the old expression of reckless ferocity into one of good-humoured independence. And Tom Troubridge, no careless observer of men, had said once to Major Buckley, that he thought his face grew each year more like what it must have been when a boy. A bold flight of fancy for Tom, but, like all else he said, true. Such was William Lee, as he stopped Sam in the yard, and, with a bold, honest look of admiration, said-- "It makes me feel young to look at you, Mr. Buckley. You are a great stranger here lately. Some young lady to run after, I suppose? Well, never mind; I hope it ain't Miss Blake." "A man may not marry his grandmother, Lee," said Sam, laughing. "True for you, sir," said Lee. "That was wrote up in Drumston church, I mind, and some other things alongside of it, which I could say by heart once on a time--all on black boards, with yellow letters. And also, I remember a spick and span new board, about how Anthony Hamlyn (that's Mr. Geoffry Hamlyn's father) 'repaired and beautified this church;' which meant that he built a handsome new pew for himself in the chancel. Lord, I think I see him asleep in it now. But never mind that I've kept a pup of Fly's for you, sir, and got it through the distemper. Fly's pup, by Rollicker, you know." "Oh, thank you," said Sam. "I am really much obliged to you. But you must let me know the price, you know, Lee. The dog should be a good one."