Florella's palette fell out of her hand before this friendly greeting revealed to her that it was not the old, but the young Guy, who stood at the garden gate. He had not been at Waynflete since his return, and now came forward with outstretched hand, while Jem appeared behind him like his shadow. "Godfrey has been away," he said, "and I couldn't get over before. I have come to the Vicarage for a week. There are a good many arrangements to make, and I want to ask Mrs John Palmer a favour. I should like--it's an odd fancy--but I should like old Miss Maxwell, the Stauntons' cousin, to come to the church opening. You saw her, I think. I know Mrs Palmer is going kindly to do the entertaining." "Oh yes," said Florella. "I had thought of her. But she'd like you to ask her yourself." "So I know," he said; "I shall ride over. Staunton says he won't come in the character of an hereditary foe; but I shall get him somehow." "We asked Violet," said Florella, "and she says that ancestors are such a novelty that she is delighted to have even a villain." Guy and Florella had a laugh in common as he turned and spoke to Peggy, and she gathered up her sketching things. "Eh," said the old woman, as they went out at the gate together, "t' owd Guy winna mak' an end yet o' Waynfletes!" When old Miss Maxwell, picking York and Lancaster roses in her little garden, looked down the bleak grey street of Ouselwell, and beheld a stranger riding up, she felt, as she said afterwards, a presentiment of something unusual, which, as strange and striking young men were not common in Ouselwell, was perhaps not surprising. But it was fulfilled when the stranger left his horse at the inn, and walking up to her gate, bowed politely, and introduced himself as Guy Waynflete, a friend of her cousin, Mr Cuthbert Staunton. Miss Maxwell made him a formal bow and led him into her little drawing-room, and the little old maid and the tall young man sat down opposite to each other, and Guy said quite simply-- "Miss Maxwell, we have been restoring Waynflete Church. It is to be opened on Michaelmas Day, and my brother and I wish very much that you should be with us on the occasion. We have to thank you for the family papers which you allowed us to have." "You do me a great honour, Mr Waynflete," said the old lady, formally. "It is long since I was so far from home; but I should, I assure you, be glad to share in the rejoicing. Although the relations between our families were not as happy as could be wished, yet somehow, sir, any connection so long ago creates an interest." "Yes," said Guy; "that is just my feeling." Then she gave Guy bread and salt in the shape of tea and hot cakes, and lapsed into more friendly chat, shaking hands tenderly with him when he took leave, and the interview, a somewhat quaint one for the end of the nineteenth century, concluded.