He strode out of the house, Bray following in his wake, to look for the reptile which had caused the alarm. Bray was sure nothing would come of it: the thing had had time to get clear away. In point of fact, nothing did come of it. George Godolphin could not decide upon the precise spot where they had stood when he threw away the reptile; and, to beat over the whole field, which was extensive, would have been endless work. He examined carefully the spot where Maria had sat, both he and Bray, but could see no trace of anything alarming. Gathering up her treasures, including the camp-stool, he set off with them. Bray made a feeble show of offering to bear the stool. "No," said George, "I'll carry it myself: it would be too much trouble for you." Charlotte Pain stood at the door, watching as they approached, her rich cheek glowing, her eye flashing. Never had she looked more beautiful, and she bent her sweetest smile upon Mr. George, who had the camp-stool swinging on his back. Lady Godolphin had gone up to the invalid. Maria, quite herself again, came forward. "No luck," said George. "I meant to have secured the fellow and put him under a glass case as a memento: but he has been too cunning. Here's your sketch, Maria; undamaged. And here are the other rattletraps." She bent over the drawing quite fondly. "I am glad I had finished it," she said. "I can do the filling-in later. I should not have had courage to sit in that place again." "Well, old lady," cried George in his free-and-easy manner, as he stood by the Welshwoman, and looked down at her nimble fingers, "so you have come all the way from Wales on foot, I hear! You put some of us to shame." She looked up and smiled pleasantly. She understood English better than she could speak it. "Not on foot all the way," she managed to explain. "On foot to the great steamer, and then on foot again after the steamer landed her in Scotland. Not less than a hundred miles of land, taking both ways together." "Oh, I see!" said George, perceiving that Margery had taken up a wrong impression. "But you must have been a good time doing that?" "She had the time before her," she answered, more by signs than words, "and her legs were used to the roads. In her husband's lifetime she had oftentimes accompanied him on foot to different parts of England, when he went there with his droves of cattle. It was in those journeys that she learnt to talk English." George laughed at her idea of talking English. "Did you learn the use of the pipe also in the journeys, old lady?" She certainly had; for she nodded fifty times in answer, and looked delighted at his divination. "But she was obliged to put up with cheap tobacco now," she said: "and had a trouble to get that!" George pulled out a supply of Turkey from some hidden receptacle of his coat. "Did she like that sort?"