“It is the right old antiquous way,” said Susie with energy, “and I like it far the best. I heard about the horseman too--what it means,” she added in a low tone. “Papa will never let me speak, but I could tell you such things, Fred, if----” And here the little girl made various telegraphic signs, meaning that enlightenment might be afforded if they were alone together, with the mother well out of the way. These designs, however, were frustrated unconsciously by Mrs. Dalyell, who gave her daughter something to do in the way of replying to notes, which kept Susie busy until it was time for Fred to depart. But yet there was a little time for talk when the girls went with him round to the stables to remind the groom that he must not be late. “Where did you hear about that feudal business, Susie?” said Fred. “Did you get it out of a book?” “I got it out of something much funnier. I got it out of old Janet. You should just hear her; she knows more about us--oh! so much more--than we know about ourselves. She told me about----” “Old Janet!” said Fred. He had forgotten his father’s grave talk and all that had passed on the terrace, and it was not till he had thought it over for a minute or two that it slowly came back to him what association that was which was linked with the name of old Janet. Not that he had not perfect acquaintance with her, as a matter of fact. She had been Mr. Dalyell’s nurse, and had always possessed a room of her own at Yalton, where she lived in a curious isolation and independence--respected, and, perhaps, a little feared by the household in general. Fred endeavoured to remember what it was as Susie’s voice ran on, and then it suddenly burst upon him. It was to her his father had advised him to go if he wanted help, in the supposed contingency of his own removal--old Janet, of all people in the world! The recollection made Fred indignant, yet gave him a sort of shiver of alarmed presentiment as well. Could his father have meant anything more than a mere passing fancy? Yet surely he must have meant something. And under what possible circumstances could he, Fred, a University-man, and acquainted with the world, require to take counsel with old Janet? It gave him the strangest thrill to his very finger-points. It must mean something different from what it seemed to mean. His father would never have given him such a recommendation without a reason. Fred thought with a sensation of horror of the family secrets which such an old woman might possess. She might know something that would ruin them all--there might be something hanging over them, something which she had to break to him. Fred flung this fancy out of his mind as if it had been a stone that some one had thrown into it, and came back to what Susie was saying. Indifferent to the fact that he was not listening, Susie was recounting the story of the family warning.