There was only one thing which had troubled her in the dream, and she had not said anything to Kirkby about it. Indeed, she had almost forgotten it when she awoke, safe in her hopes as she was, as if ringed by shields; but now it set her mind wondering and her brow wrinkling.... She had been troubled and puzzled because of the questions which They had asked her. Maggie, for instance, had wanted to know all about the people at home,--who lived in this place and that, and a lot of other things which she had been put to it to answer. “Who’s got Beck Edge, nowadays, Mother, and Field Howe? Beck Edge belonged to the father, didn’t it, and t’other to the son? I remember hearing they wanted to change about, but I don’t know if they ever did.” Her mother, however, had been quite unable to clear up the mystery,--if mystery there was,--about Beck Edge and Field Howe. She had never been interested in the matter, and she cared nothing about it now. But Maggie was so interested that she couldn’t stop talking about it. Her colour rose and her eyes shone. Digging up vague details from a quite improbable past, she proceeded to shape them into an unreliable present. You might almost have thought that she had a personal bias in the affair; whereas the truth was that she had never been nearer either of the houses than a crow’s flight on a fine day. Luke’s questions had been chiefly about the staff,--who was working for his father, these days, and what had happened to the rest. “I always thought Nicholson wouldn’t last so long,” he had said. “He was a bad egg,--sure! Tommy Rigg’ll be getting an old man now, and likely past his work. What? D’you mean to say he’s been gone five year back and more? Gosh! How time does scoot!” He had said another thing after that which had annoyed her sorely in the dream, and which even in remembrance made her fume a little. “Len Machell’s still hanging on, isn’t he?” he had asked. “Father thought a lot of Len. I never let on to you about it, Mother, but he once applied to me for a job. When we were on our feet, it was, and he knew we’d something to offer; but of course I told him that I shouldn’t think of sniping him like that from the old dad.” She had been pretty short with him, she remembered now,--had implied, whilst busy commenting upon Machell’s “cheek,” that there had been “cheek” on Luke’s part as well. He had only laughed in his cheerful way, and the dream had melted and changed, but the flame of her indignation was still at work within her. She had not known that she could care so much about a thing like that, or that she could resent so bitterly a slight on Kirkby. And not only Kirkby himself, but Kirkby’s job, which she had always imagined that she despised and hated!... She was surprised by her own attitude, and lay for some time brooding over it. It was only with difficulty that she reminded herself that it was “only a dream,” and that in all probability Machell had never applied at all.