“Not when he's thousands of miles away, Mr. Teesdale.” Mr. Teesdale raised his wrinkled forehead and drove on. A look of mingled anxiety and pain aged him years in a minute. Soon the country roads were left behind, and the houses began closing up on either side of a very long and broad high road. It was ten minutes to seven by Mr. Teesdale's watch when he looked at it again. It was time for him to say the difficult thing which had occurred to him two or three miles back, and he said it in the gentlest tones imaginable from an old man of nearly seventy. “Missy, my dear, is it possible” (so he put it) “that you have run short of the needful?” “It's a fact,” said Missy light-heartedly. “But how, my dear, have you managed to do that?” “How? Let's see. I gave a lot away—to a woman in the steerage—whose husband went and died at sea. He died of dropsy. I nursed him, I did. Rather! I helped lay him out when he was dead. But don't go telling anybody—please.” Mr. Teesdale had shuddered uncontrollably; now, however, he shifted the reins to his right hand in order to pat Missy with his left. “You're a noble girl. You are that! Yet it's only what I should have expected of their child. I might ha' known you'd be a noble girl.” “But you won't tell anybody?” “Not if you'd rather I didn't. That proves your nobility! About how much would you like, my dear, to go on with?” “Oh, twenty pounds.” Mr. Teesdale drew the breeze in through the broken ranks of his teeth. “Wouldn't—wouldn't ten do, my dear?” “Ten? Let's think. No, I don't think I could do with a penny less than twenty. You see, a wave came into the cabin and spoilt all my things. I want everything new.” “But I understood you had such a good voyage, Missy?” “Not from me you didn't! Besides, it was my own fault: I gone and left the window open, and in came a sea. Didn't the captain kick up a shine! But I told him it was worse for me than for him; and look at the old duds I've got to go about in all because! Why, I look quite common—I know I do. No; I must have new before I come out to stay at the farm.” “I'm sure our Arabella dresses simple,” the farmer was beginning; but Missy cut him short, and there was a spot of anger on each of her pale cheeks as she broke out: “But this ain't simple—it's common! I had to borrow the most of it. All my things were spoilt. I can't get a new rig-out for less than twenty pounds, and without everything new——” “Nay, come!” cried old David, in some trouble. “Of course I'll let you have anything you want—I have your father's instructions to do so. But—but there are difficulties. It's difficult at this moment. You see the banks are closed, and—and—-” “Oh, don't you be in any hurry. Send it when you can; then I'll get the things and come out afterwards. Why, here we are at Lonsdale Street!” “But I want you to come out soon. How long would it take you to get everything?” “To-day's Thursday. If I had it to-morrow I could come out on Monday.”