'No, she had never set eyes on her before. I? Oh yes, I had--the pretty little piece! But when I bring her in, and have said no more than one cough, the wife goes clean past me, and has the girl in her arms, and calls her by her sister's name, and sobs hard and dry like a man. It turned me silly and rotten, it did. I knew for a minute she didn't fairly know it was not somehow her sister; no older than Rhoda she was, poor thing, when she last stood under our roof; and their last parting had not been over tender. Well, I had messed the business--I knew I should,--for there was the wife going on, saying things, and there was Rhoda getting scared and white, and putting out a hand to me. And then I go one worse, for I get hold of her, and say, "She takes you for your mother, child," that the wife may get the hang of it; and at that down she sits sudden, all of a shake. But the poor wench says, "My _mother_!" for--well, I suppose I had lied sometime--she thought she was the truly begotten orphan of an estranged brother. Nothing would come handy but the truth--the wife being there; so I even told it all. Yes, I did, though it did seem cruel hard for a young wench to have that story from a beard. But it worked well; for when the poor child knew not how to bestow her eyes, nor to bear the red of shame, up stands the wife to her, just woman by woman, and looks fierce at me, and to her Rhoda closes all a-quiver, and in a moment the wife has kissed her, blight and all, and Rhoda is crying enough for both. That was over an hour before you came in on us, when out jumped "cousin" and "niece" to clinch the business. I knew she would never go back on them. To think that all these years--well--well.' 'Well, Dad--all these years?' said Christian, incited by Lois's words to be curious of Giles's conduct; for he was a comrade of easy imperfection, not insistent of the highest rectitudes, nor often a consistent exemplar of Lois's strict precepts. Giles drew in. 'A grape has grown from a thorn, that's all,' he said. 'But how came you----' 'And a pumpkin has overgrown too. Here--clear out, you've left a moderate body no room to turn.' So Christian understood he was to be excluded from full confidence. Loyal every inch of him, he respected Giles's reserve and never questioned Rhoda herself. He did but listen. Clear, colourless years, regulated under convent control, was all the past she knew; serene, not unhappy, till the lot of a portionless orphan lay provided for her in a sordid marriage, that her young instinct knew to be prostitution, though the Church and the world sanctioned it as a holy estate. To her this blessed transplantation into a very home gave a new, warm atmosphere that kindled fresh life. The blanch bud expanded and glowed, fresh, dewy, excellent as the bloom of her name. And very sweet incense her shy gratitude distilled.