"Yes, my lady," came the passive response. She took the child into her own arms, pressing it to her with a little convulsive movement, then, as the carriage drove off, dropped a curtsy. "That's a sad business," said Lady Gridborough, speaking rather to herself than to her companion. "It's the old story: selfish man, weak woman." "She is a stranger here?" asked Celia. "Yes; she was born in a little village where I live sometimes. I brought her here--was obliged to. They were harrowing the poor child to death, the toads! She was dying by inches, she and the child, too, and so I carried her away from her own place and stuck her into this cottage." "That was very good of you," said Celia, warmly. "Oh, well, whenever I see Susie, I think of my own girlhood and its temptations, and say to myself, like the man whose name I can't remember, 'but for the grace of God, there goes Constance Gridborough.' Here we are!" They had covered the long drive, and reached a house almost as grand as the hall. As at the Hall, there was a superfluity of servants, and one would have thought the little Exmoor was an elephant by the way in which a couple of grooms sprang forward to his diminutive head. The old lady, leaning on a stick and the arm of a footman, led Celia into the house. While lunch was in progress the old lady talked in the same friendly and familiar way, as if she had known Celia for years. "I suppose you're a college girl? Wiggins, help Miss Grant to some chicken. You must make a good lunch, for I am sure you must be hungry. Father and mother living?" "No," said Celia, quietly. "That's sad," commented her ladyship. "And so you're thrown on your own resources. Well, they look as if they'd stand by you. I'm glad you've come to the Hall, now I find that you're not a blue-stocking and don't wear spectacles. Yes, I'm glad, for I've rather taken a fancy to you. I like healthy young things, and you look as if you were a part of the morning. Sounds like poetry out of one of your wretched books." "And now," said Celia, after a while, "I must be going, Lady Gridborough. I have been away quite a long time." "You must come again," said the old lady. "Do you think," said Celia, hesitatingly, as she slipped on her jacket, "that the young woman, Susie, as you call her, would let me go to see her sometimes? I should like to." "Yes, my dear," said her ladyship, with a nod which showed she was pleased. "Go and see her, by all means. You're a girl of about her own age, and she may open her heart to you. A sad business--a sad business," she murmured. "And what makes it more sad for me is that I knew the young man." She paused and appeared as if she were hesitating, then she said: