“No! I prefer to see him by myself!” replied Hannah, as she rose majestically from the table and proceeded to the library. There she encountered Joe Brushwood, who had cast her off in the days gone-by, standing by the window and looking very sheepish. He was not altered in the least--a trifle stouter, perhaps, and a trifle coarser, but attired in his best velveteen coat and corduroy breeches, with a gaily flowered waistcoat. He started violently as he caught sight of Hannah. He had heard that she had married a rich gentleman, but he had had no idea of encountering such magnificence as this. The Marchesa was arrayed in her ordinary dinner-dress, but it looked like a robe of state in the unsophisticated eyes of her former admirer. “And what is it that you may want of me?” she demanded, with her grandest air, as she advanced upon the astonished Brushwood. “Lor! Hannah!” he exclaimed--but she quickly brought her foot down upon such insolent familiarity. “Who are you? How _dare_ you address me in such terms? I am the Marchesa di Sorrento! You will have the goodness to call me ‘my Lady’, if you speak to me at all.” “O! yes! certainly. I’m sure I begs your pardon,” replied Joe, as he nervously twisted his bowler hat round in his hands, “but I came up from Settlefield a purpuss this mornin’, and I’ve been walking round Lunnon for hours, trying to find out where you lived--” “And what has all this to do with me?” demanded Hannah. “O! I ain’t done yet!” continued the young man. “Your pore mother, she’s werry bad indeed, and she wants to see you terrible! I don’t know what’s the matter with her, but she’s going fast, the Doctor says, and times ’ave been werry bad this season, and your father says ’e don’t know ’ow ’e’ll bury ’er, without some ’elp. And so--as we ’eard as you was married to a rich gentleman, we made so bold as to come up--leastways _I_ did--to arsk if you could spare ’em a trifle, and go down and see your pore mother afore she dies!” Hannah let the whole of this long-winded speech come to a finish, before she collected her forces and answered it. “You have made a mistake, young man,” she said at last, “I know nothing of Settlefield, or the people you are begging for. I am the Marchesa di Sorrento! Some one must have put you on the wrong scent for a joke! If your friends are in such want, you had better apply to their parish for relief! I have my own poor people to look after, and cannot afford to provide for strangers.” Joe Brushwood scratched his head, and opened his eyes wide. “But you was Hannah Stubbs--sure-_ly_!” he ejaculated, “as lived at Settlefield and was my young woman! Everyone knows you down there, as well as the village pump! And sure-ly, you won’t turn on your own mother now she’s sick and dying and in want! A fiver would set ’em right, but the times ’as been ’ard, and they’ve several mouths to feed, and if you _are_ a Mar-cheesa you might ’ave ’uman feelings!”