I was staggered for a moment. "But you understand him?" I said. "In some ways, sir," was her answer. I recognised the direction of the limitation. "Ah! we none of us understand him in all ways," I said, with a touch of patronage. "No, sir," replied Ellen Mary. She evidently agreed to that statement without qualification. "But what is he going to do?" I asked. "When he grows up, I mean?" "I can't say, sir. We must leave that to 'im." I accepted the rebuke more mildly than I should have done on the previous day. "He never speaks of his future?" I said feebly. "No, sir." There seemed to be nothing more to say. We had only gone a couple of hundred yards, but I paused in my walk. I thought I might as well go back and get my breakfast. But Mrs. Stott looked at me as though she had something more to say. We stood facing each other on the cart track. "I suppose I can't be of any use?" I asked vaguely. Ellen Mary became suddenly voluble. "I 'ope I'm not askin' too much, sir," she said, "but there is a way you could 'elp if you would. 'E 'ardly ever speaks to me, as I've said, but I've been opset about that 'Arrison boy. 'E's a brute beast, sir, if you know what I mean, and _'e_" (she differentiated her pronouns only by accent, and where there is any doubt I have used italics to indicate that her son is referred to) "doesn't seem to 'ave the same 'old on 'im as _'e_ does over others. It's truth, I am not easy in my mind about it, sir, although _'e_ 'as never said a word to me, not being afraid of anything like other children, but 'e seems to have took a sort of a fancy to you, sir" (I think this was intended as the subtlest flattery), "and if you was to go with 'im when 'e takes 'is walks--'e's much in the air, sir, and a great one for walkin'--I think 'e'd be glad of your cump'ny, though maybe 'e won't never say it in so many words. You mustn't mind 'im being silent, sir; there's some things we can't understand, and though, as I say, 'e 'asn't said anything to me, it's not that I'm scheming be'ind 'is back, for I know 'is meaning without words being necessary." She might have said more, but I interrupted her at this point. "Certainly, I will come and fetch him,"--I lapsed unconsciously into her system of denomination--"this morning, if you are sure he would like to come out with me." "I'm quite sure, sir," she said. "About nine o'clock?" I asked. "That would do nicely, sir," she answered. As I walked back to the farm I was thinking of the life of those two occupants of the Stotts' cottage. The mother who watched her son in silence, studying his every look and action in order to gather his meaning; who never asked her son a question nor expected from him any statement of opinion; and the son wrapped always in that profound speculation which seemed to be his only mood. What a household! It struck me while I was having breakfast that I seemed to have let myself in for a duty that might prove anything but pleasant. VI