"No, no, wait a moment," replied Fay, hurriedly. "I must see if Mrs. Duncan be at home. Will you help me out?" for her limbs were trembling under her, and the weight of the baby was too much for her exhausted strength. She felt as though she could never get to the end of the steep little garden, or reach the stone porch. Yes; it was the same old gray house she remembered, with the small diamond-paned windows twinkling in the sunshine; and as she toiled up the narrow path, with Nero barking delightedly round her, the door opened, and a little old lady with a white hood drawn over her white curls, and a gardening basket on her arm, stepped out into the porch. Fay gave a little cry when she saw her. "Oh, Mrs. Duncan," she said; and she and the baby together seemed to totter and collapse in the little old lady's arms. "Gracious heavens!" exclaimed the startled woman; then, as her basket and scissors rolled to the ground, "Jean, lass, where are you? here are two bairns, and one of them looks fit to faint--ay, why, it is never our dear little Miss Mordaunt? Why, my bairn--" But at this moment a red-haired, freckled woman, with a pleasant, weather-beaten face, quietly lifted the mother and child, and carried them into a dusky little parlor; and in another minute Fay found herself lying on a couch, and her baby crying lustily in Jean's arms, while the little old lady was bathing her face with some cold, fragrant water, with the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Ay, my bonnie woman," she said, "you have given Jean and me a turn; and there's the big doggie, too, that would be after licking your face--and for all he knows you are better now--like a Christian. Run away, Jean, and warm a sup of milk for the bairn, and may be his mother would like a cup of tea and a freshly baked scone. There give me the baby, and I'll hold him while you are gone." "There's Andrew bringing in a heap of boxes," observed Jean, stolidly; "will he be setting them down in the porch? for we must not wake the minister." "Ay, ay," returned Mrs. Duncan, in a bewildered tone; but she hardly took in the sense of Jean's speech--she was rocking the baby in her old arms and looking at the pretty, white, sunken face that lay on the chintz cushion. Of course it was little Miss Mordaunt, but what did it mean--what could it all mean? "Mrs. Duncan," whispered Fay, as she raised herself on her pillow, "I have come to you because I am so unhappy, and I have no other friend. I am married, and this is my baby, and my husband does not want me, and indeed it would have killed me to stop with him, and I have come to you, and he must not find me, and you must take care of baby and me," and here her tears burst out, and she clung round the old lady's neck. "I have money, and I can pay the minister; and I am so fond of you both--do let me stay."