"Aye, aye, poor maid!" said Alwright, sympathetically. "I can guess well. 'Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.' But the letter never reached my lady. Joseph did not get to London till after we had set out for Rome. As soon as we came back to the Hall, my lady's first inquiry was for you, and sadly disappointed we were to learn that the family was broken up, and you were gone no one knew where." "Your brother knew, and Dame Oldmixon." "Yes, but neither of them were at Holford. A gentleman my brother knew at college has given him a fine living away off in the North, somewhere about Durham. And Dame Oldmixon has gone to live with some of her kin. So we could find out nothing from them. Then my lady left the Hall for good, and we went to Exeter, where we have—I mean, my lady has a fine old house, as good as this. And the heir has new furnished the Hall, and given my lady a deal of the old furniture, so you will see the place looking very natural, though, to be sure, we have not the Hall garden to walk in." "But how did you find me out at last?" "Oh, my lady was wanted at the Hall on some business. I must say the new family are very civil, and treated her as though she were the head of the house still. So we went out to visit all the old places, and among the rest the Stonehill farm. And there we found your uncle and aunt—a stirring, notable dame she seems, but no more like your dear mother than a houseleek is like a bunch of violets. She told us that you had gone to live as governess to my Lady Corbet's daughters, and had staid behind to nurse them in the fever, but she did not know whether you were dead or alive. "So then my lady said, 'Alwright, I am going to Bristol to seek out my cousin Judith.' "For you see, there had been no intercourse between them for ever so long, my old lady having been bitterly opposed to Mrs. Judith marrying young Corbet, though he has turned out enough better than that poor silly Mr. Hervey. "'I am sure she will give us a welcome for the sake of old times,' said my lady; 'and perhaps I may find Winifred still with her.' "And so she did! She had always a warm heart, had Mrs. Judith, and I for one never blamed her for marrying the man to whom her parents betrothed her. So she welcomed us as if we had been princesses of the blood, and could not say enough in your praise for all you did, which I was not at all surprised at, for you were ever a good girl, my dear, and had the best of teaching, though I say it that should not, perhaps." "She is an excellent lady," said Winifred, warmly. "An own father and mother could not have been kinder than she and Sir John have been to me since I have been ill." "And so she ought!" said Alwright, rather indignantly. "I wonder what she would have done without you. But she is a good woman, that I do not deny, and seems to have brought up her daughters well." "That she has, and they are all sweet girls. I long for the time when I shall be able to teach them again."