“But I can light your fire again for you, and boil your kettle in two twos,” burst in Lucy. “And we’ve brought some tea with us.”

Her young mistress put a light hand on her arm.

“Never mind, Lucy,” she said, quietly. “If Mrs. Wall doesn’t care for us to go to her cottage we will not trouble her.”

As she spoke her eyes brightened, for at the end of the long barn she descried in the dusk the figure of the gentleman who had come to their aid that afternoon and then left them with such unaccountable suddenness. Lucy saw him too, and being more demonstrative than her mistress, she gave vent to her delight in words.

“No, Mrs. Wall, ma’am; you needn’t go for to put yourself out, for there’s better folks than you coming along, that are a deal more obliging than ever you’d be, and that have some Christian kindness in them, which is more than can be said for you. Ugh, you grumpy old woman, you!”

“Hush, Lucy,” said her mistress in gentle rebuke; “the gentleman will hear you. And I don’t suppose he is coming here at all,” she added, reluctantly, as the figure they had both so quickly recognized disappeared again in the gloom.

“What gentleman? What gentleman?” asked the old woman, shrilly.

“How should we know, when we’re strangers here?” retorted Lucy, who, now, that her tongue was once loosened, was delighted to have what she afterwards called “a go-in” at their disobliging guide. “But he was a real gentleman; not like your pig-faced friend in the corduroy trousers that you’re so mighty civil to; and he wears knickerbockers and gaiters and a cap over his eyes, if that is anything you can tell him by.”

Apparently it was, for Sarah gave a step back in horror, and ejaculated “Mercy on us!” two or three times, as if too much shocked for further speech.

“What’s the matter?” asked Olivia, rather sharply, remembering the stranger’s warning that she would hear no good of him from Sarah Wall, and curious to learn the reason. “If you know who the gentleman is, tell me his name. And what do you know against him?” she added, indiscreetly.

Mrs. Wall, though not brilliantly intelligent, had the splendid gift of reticence where she thought that things might “go round.” She only shook her head, therefore, and muttered something about getting herself into trouble and desiring to be allowed to go home.

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