Thus she sat absorbed in her homely occupation, when she heard voices approaching through the soft air. One of them she recognised at once with a thrill of pleasure to be Val’s. He was coming slowly along, pointing out everything to some one with him. The woman dropped the peas out of her hands, and listened. The window was open, and so near the road that every sound was distinctly heard. It was some time before any one replied to Val, and the listener had leisure enough for many wild fears and throbs of anxious suspense. At last the answer came--in a lady’s voice, which she knew as well as if she had heard it yesterday, with its soft Scotch accent, its firm tone and character, unlike any other she knew. The woman rose suddenly, noiselessly, to her feet; she grew white and blanched, as with deadly terror. “Here is where Brown lives,” said Val, in his cheery voice--“and his mother, whom I want you particularly to see. A nice little house, isn’t it? Stop and look at the boats down the river before we go in. Isn’t it pretty, grandma? not like our Esk, to be sure, but with a beauty of its own.” “Far gayer and brighter than Esk, certainly,” said Lady Eskside, quite willing to humour the boy; though her own opinion of the broad, flat, unshadowed, and unfeatured Thames was not too flattering. She stood leaning upon his arm, rapt in a soft Elysium of pride and happiness. The lovely morning, and the good accounts she had been hearing of her boy, and the fact that he was going home with her, and that she was leaning on his arm, and seeing more beauty in his kind young face than the loveliest summer morning or the fairest scene could have shown her--all combined to make everything fair to Lady Eskside. She was going to visit his humble friends--to seal with her approbation that kindly patronage of the “deserving” poor, which is as creditable to their superiors as a love of low society is discreditable. They stood together talking for a minute at the open door.