The little boy turned round hastily. What a strange meeting! Oddly enough it had never occurred to the Squire to think who it was. Strangers were rife enough in these regions, and people would now and then come to Penninghame with their families--who would stray into the Chase, taking it for public property. But for the ducks and drakes which interested him, he would probably have collared the little fellow, and demanded to know what right he had to be here. He was therefore quite unprepared for the encounter, and looked with the strangest emotions of wonder and half-terror into the face which was so familiar to him, but so strange, the face of his grandson and heir. When once he had seen the child no further doubt was possible. He stared at him as if he had been a little ghost. He had not presence of mind to turn on his heel and go away at once, which would have been the only way of keeping up his former tactics; he was speechless and overpowered; and there was nobody by to spy upon him, no grown-up spectators--not even the other child to observe what he did, or listen to what he said. In this case the Squire did not feel the need to be vigilant, which in other circumstances would have given him self-command. Thus the shock and surprise, and the perfect freedom of his position, unwatched and unseen, alike broke down all his defences. After the first start he stood still and gazed at the child, who still, more frankly and with much less emotion, gazed at him. “Who are you, sir?” the grandfather said, with a tone that was meant to be very peremptory. The jar in it was incomprehensible to Nello: but yet it gave him greater courage. “I am Ne--that is to say,” the little fellow answered, with a sudden flush and change of countenance, “my name, it is John.” “John what? Speak up, sir. Do you know you are a little trespasser, and have no business to be here?” “Oh yes, I have a business to be here,” said Nello. “I don’t know what it is to be a trespasser. I live at the Castle, me. I can come when I please, and nobody has any business to send me away.” “Do you know who I am?” asked the Squire, bending his brows. Nello looked at him curiously, half amused, though he was half frightened. He had never been so near, or looked his grandfather in the face before. “I _know_; but I may not tell,” said Nello. He shook his head, and though he was not very quick-witted, some latent sense of fun brought a mischievous look to his face. “We know very well, but we are never to tell,” he added, shaking his head once more, looking up with watchful eyes, as children have a way of doing, to take his cue from the expression of the elder face; and there was something very strange in that gleam of fun in Nello’s eyes. “We know, but we are never, never to tell. “Who told you so?”