As the two ladies approached the steps a young countrywoman came down them, saying in a mingled strain of persuasion and threat, "Come, Master Justus: if you don't come along this minute, I'll tell your granma." And a naughty invisible voice made an answer with lisping defiance, "Well, go, Sally, go. Be quick! go before your shoes wear out." Mrs. Stokes, rounding her pretty eyes and pretty mouth, cried softly, "Oh, what a very rude little boy!" And the very rude little boy appeared in sight, hustled coaxingly behind by the stout respectable housekeeper of Mr. Laurence Fairfax. When he saw the strange ladies he stood stock-still and gazed at them as bold as Hector, and they gazed at him again in mute amazement--a cherub of four years old or thereabouts, with big blue eyes and yellow curls. When he had satisfied himself with gazing, he descended the steps and set off suddenly at a run for the archway. The housekeeper had a flushed, uneasy smile on her face as she recognized Mrs. Stokes--a smile of amused consternation, which the little lady's shocked grimace provoked. Bessie herself laughed in looking at her again, and the housekeeper rallied her composure enough to say, "Oh, the self-will and naughtiness there is in boys, ma'am! But you know it, having boys of your own!" "Too well, Mrs. Burrage, too well! Is Mr. Laurence Fairfax at home?" "I am sorry to say that he is not, ma'am. May I make bold to ask if the young lady is Miss Fairfax from Abbotsmead, that was expected?" Bessie confessed to her identity, and while Mrs. Stokes wrote the name of Miss Fairfax on one of her own visiting-cards (for Bessie was still unprovided), Burrage begged, as an old servant of the house, to offer her best wishes and to inquire after the health of the squire. They were interrupted by that rude little boy, who came running back into the court with Sally in pursuit. He was shouting too at the top of his voice, and making its solemn echoes ring again. Burrage with sudden gravity watched what would ensue. Capture ensued, and a second evasion into the street. Burrage shook her head, as who would say that Sally's riotous charge was far beyond her control--which indubitably he was--and Bessie forgot her errand entirely. Whose was that little boy, the picture of herself? Mrs. Stokes recovered her countenance. They turned to go, and were halfway across the court when the housekeeper called after them in haste: "Ladies, ladies! my master has come in by the garden way, if you will be pleased to return?" and they returned, neither of them by word or look affording to the other any intimation of her profound reflections.