HOW MRS. PICTURE SPOILED OLD PHOEBE'S DREAM, BUT WAS A NICE OLD SOUL, TO LOOK AT. PARSON DUNAGE's MOTHER. A CLOCK THAT STRUCK, BETWEEN TWO TWINS. HOW TOBY DID NOT WAKE, AND KEZIAH SOLMES CAME NEXT DAY FOR HIM. THE WICKED MAN WHO DID IT AGAIN, AND HIS RESEMBLANCE TO TOBY. THE COATINGS OF THE LATTER'S STOMACH. MRS. LAMPREY. COLONEL WARRENDER AND THE PHEASANTS. HOW WIDOW THRALE AND KEZIAH WENT TO SEE AN OLD SOUL NEXT DAY. A RETROSPECULATION. SUPPOSE WIDOW THRALE HAD BEEN TOLD! ON IMPROBABILITY, IMPOSSIBILITY, INCREDIBILITY, AND MAISIE's PILGRIMAGE TO A GRAVE SHE NEVER FOUND. MATTHEW, MARK, LUKE, JOHN, AND THEIR IRRELEVANCE

"'Tis pity she could not stop!" said Granny Marrable in the course of evening chat with the niece, who was scarcely thought of as anything but a daughter, by even the oldest village gossips. Indeed, when we reflect that little Ruth Daverill, now Widow Thrale, was under four when her mother tore herself from her to rejoin her husband, it is little wonder that she should take the same view of her own parentage. For one thing, there was the twinship between the mother and aunt. The child under four can have seen little difference between them.

The pen almost shrinks from writing Widow Ruth's reply to old Phoebe, so plainly did it word her ignorance of who this was that she had seen two hours since. "Who, mother? Oh, the old person! Ay, but she has a kind heart, has Gwen." This was not disrespectful familiarity. All the villagers in those parts, talking among themselves, gave their christened names to the Earl's family. The moment an outsider came in, "The Family" consisted entirely of lordships and ladyships.

But how strange, that such a speech—actually the naming of a mother by a daughter—should be so slightly spoken, in an ignorance so complete!

Granny Marrable's thought, of the two, dwelt more on "the old person"; whose identity, as Dave's other Granny, had made its impression on her. Otherwise, for all she had seen of her, it might have passed from her mind. Also, she was grieved about that mutton-broth. The poor old soul had just looked worn to death, and all that way to drive! If she had only just swallowed half a cup, it would have made such a difference. It added to Granny Marrable's regret, that the mutton-broth had proved so good. The old soul had passed on unrefreshed even while Strides Cottage was endorsing that mutton-broth.

The Granny quite fretted over it, not even the beautiful fur tippet Sister Nora had sent her having power to expel it from her mind. And, quite late, nigh on to midnight, she woke with a start from a dream she had had; it set her off talking again about old Mrs. Picture. For it was one of this old lady's vices that she would sit up late and waste a deal of good sleep out of bed in that venerable arm-chair of hers.

"There now, Ruth," said she, "I was asleep again and dreaming." For she never would admit that this practice was an invariable one.

"What about, mother?" said Widow Thrale.

"That breaking of the glass set me a-dreaming over our old mill, and your mother, child, that died across the seas. We was both there, girls like, all over again. Only Dave's Mrs. Picture, she come across the dream, and spoilt it."

It was not necessary for Mrs. Ruth to take her attention off the pillow-lace she was at work upon. She remarked:—"I thought her a nice old soul, to look at." This was not quite uncoloured by the vague indictment against Mrs. Picture about Dave, who had, somehow, qualified for the receipt of forgiveness. Which implies some offence to condone.

Shadowy as the offence was, Granny Marrable could not ignore it altogether. "Good looks are skin-deep—so they say! But it's not for me to be setting up for judge. At her time of life, and she a-looking so worn out, too!" The memory of the mutton-broth rankled. Forgiveness was setting in.

"At her time of life, mother? Why, she's none so much older than you. What should you take her to be?" The subject was just worth spare attention not wanted for the lace-spools.

"Why, now—there's Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory. She's ninety-four this Christmas. This old soul she might be half-way on, between me and Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory."

Mrs. Ruth dropped the spools, to think arithmetically, with her fingers. "Eighty-six, eighty-seven, eighty-eight," she said, "Eighty-seven!... This one's nearer your own age than that, mother." She went on with her work.

"There now, Ruth, is not that just like you, all over? You will always be making me out older than I am. I am not turned of eighty-one, child, not till next year. My birthday comes the first day of the year."

"I thought you and my mother were both born at Christmas."

"Well, my dear, we always called it Christmas, for to have a birthday together on New Year's Eve. But the church-clock got time to strike the hour betwixt and between the two of us, so Maisie was my elder sister by just that, and no more. She would say ... Ah dearie me!—poor Maisie!... she would say by rights she should marry first, being the elder. And then I would tell her the clock was fast, and we were both of an age. 'Twas a many years sooner she married, as God would have it. All of three years before ever I met poor Nicholas." And then the old woman, who had hitherto kept back the story of her sister's marriage, made a slip of the tongue. "Maybe I was wrong, but I was a bit scared of men and marriage in those days."

It was no wonder Ruth connected this with the father she had never seen. "Why did my father go to Australia?" said she. It was asked entirely as a matter of history, for did it not happen before the speaker was born? The passive acceptance through a lifetime of such a fact can only be understood by persons who have experienced a similar sealed antecedent. Non-inquiry into such a one may be infused into a mother's milk.

Granny Marrable could be insensible to pressure after a life-time of silence. She had never thrown light on the mystery and she would not, now. Her answer even suggested a false solution. "He grew to be rich after your mother died. But I lost touch of him then, and when and where he came by his death is more than I can tell ye, child!" There was implication in this of a prosperous colonist, completely impatriated in the land of his wealth.

Ruth's father's vanished history was of less importance than the clock's statement that it was midnight. Her "Now, mother, we're later and later. It's striking to-morrow, now!" referred to present life and present bedtime, and her rapid adjustment of the spools meant business.

The old Granny showed no sense of having escaped an embarrassment. She did not shy off to another subject. On the contrary, she went back to the topic it had hinged on. "Eighty-one come January!" said she, lighting her own candle. "And please God I may see ninety, and only be the worse by the price of a new pair of glasses to read my Testament. Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory, she's gone stone-deaf, and one may shout oneself hoarse. But everyone else than you, child, I can hear plain enough. There's naught to complain of in my hearing, yet a while."

Granny Marrable's conscience stung her yet again about Mrs. Picture's departure unrefreshed. "I would have been the happier for knowing that that old soul was none the worse," said she. But all the answer she got was:—"Be quiet, mother, you'll wake up Toby."

She harped on the same string next day, the immediate provocation to the subject being a visit from Keziah Solmes the old keeper's wife—you remember her connection Keziah; she who remonstrated with her husband about the use of fire-arms, and nearly saved Adrian Torrens's eyesight?—who had been driven over, in a carrier's cart that kept up a daily communication between the Towers and Chorlton, in pursuance of an arrangement suggested one day by Gwen. Why should not Widow Thrale's convalescents, when good, enjoy the coveted advantages of a visit to the Towers? Mrs. Keziah Solmes had welcomed the opportunity for her grandson Seth. Seth was young, but with well-marked proclivities and aspirations, one of which was a desire for male companionship, preferably of boys older than himself, whom he could incite to acts of lawlessness and destruction he was still too small to commit effectually. He despised little girls. He had been pleased with the account given of the convalescent Toby, and had consented to receive him on stated terms, having reference to the inequitable distribution of cake in his own favour. Hence this visit of his grandmamma to Strides Cottage, with the end in view that she should return with Toby, who for his part had undertaken to be good, with secret reservations in his own mind as to special opportunities to be bad, created by temporary withdrawals of control.

"He can be a very bad little boy indeed," said Widow Thrale, shaking her head solemnly, "when he's forgotten himself. Who was it broke a pane of glass Thursday morning before his breakfast, and very nearly had no sugar?"

Toby said, "Me!" and did not show a contrite heart; seemed too much like the wicked man that did it again.

Granny Marrable entered into undertakings for Toby's future conduct. "He's going to be a wonderful good little boy this time," said she, "and do just exactly whatever he's told, and nothing else." Toby looked very doubtful, but allowed the matter to drop.

"He's vary hearty to look at now, Aunt Phoebe," said Mrs. Keziah—Granny Marrable was always Aunt Phoebe to her husband's relations—when this youth had gone away to conduct himself unexceptionably elsewhere, on his own recognisances. "What has the little ma'an been ailing with?" Widow Thrale gave particulars of Toby's disaster, which had let him in for a long convalescence, the moral of which was that no little boy should drink lotions intended for external use only, however inquiring his disposition might be. Toby had nearly destroyed the coatings of his stomach, and his life had only been preserved by a miracle; which, however, had happened, so it didn't matter.

Mrs. Solmes was to await the return of the carrier's cart in a couple of hours, hence it was possible to review and report upon the little local world, deliberately. Granny Marrable began near home. How was the visitor's husband?

"He doan't get any yoonger, Aunt Phoebe," said Keziah. "But he has but a vary little to complain of, at his time of life. If and only he could just be off fretting! He's never been the same in heart since he went so nigh to killing Mr. Torrens o' Pensham, him that yoong Lady Gwen is ta'aking oop with. But a can't say a didn't forewarn him o' what cooms of a lwoaded gwun. And he doan't—so I'll do him fair justice."

"Young Torrens of Pensham, he can't complain," said a sharp, youngish woman who had come into the room just soon enough to catch the thread of the conversation. She was the housekeeper at Dr. Nash's, who supplied what he prescribed, and was always very obliging about sending. She came with a bottle.

"Why can't he complain, Mrs. Lamprey?" Widow Thrale asked this first, so the others only thought it.

"Where would he have been, Mrs. Thrale, but for the accident? Accident you may call it! A rare bit o' luck some'll think! Why—who would the young gentleman have got for a wife, if nobody had shot him? Answer me that! Some girl, I suppose!"

Yes, indeed! To marry Gwen o' the Towers! But how about the poor gentleman's eyesight? This crux was conjointly propounded. "Think what eyesight is to a man!" said Widow Thrale gravely and convincingly.

Mrs. Lamprey echoed back:—"His eyesight?" with a pounce on the first syllable. But seemed to reflect, saying with an abated emphasis:—"Only of course you wouldn't know that." Know what?—said inquiry. "Why—about his eyesight! And perhaps I've no call to tell you, seeing I had it in confidence, as you might say."

This was purely formal, in order to register a breach of confidence as an allotropic form of good faith. All pointed out their perfect trustworthiness; and Mrs. Lamprey, with very little further protest, narrated how she had been present when her master, Dr. Nash—whom you will remember as having attended Adrian after the accident—told how his colleague at Pensham Steynes had written to him an account of the curious momentary revival of Adrian's eyesight, or perhaps dream. But Dr. Nash had thrown doubt on the dream, and had predicted to his wife that other incidents of the same sort would follow, would become more frequent, and end in complete recovery.

A general expression of rejoicing—most emphatic on the part of Keziah, who had a strong personal interest at stake—was followed by a reaction. It was hardly possible to concede Gwen o' the Towers to any consort short of a monarch on his throne, or a coroneted lord of thousands of acres at least, except by virtue of some great sacrifice on the part of the fortunate man, that would average his lot with that of common humanity. It wasn't fair. Let Fate be reasonable! Adrian, blind for life, was one thing; but to call such a peerless creature wife, and have eyes to see her! A line must be drawn, somewhere!

"We must hope," said Granny Marrable, as soon as a working eyesight was fairly installed in each one's image of Mr. Torrens, "that he may prove himself worthy."

Said Widow Thrale:—"'Tis no ways hard to guess which her ladyship would choose. I would not have been happy to wed with a blind husband. Nor yourself, Cousin Keziah!"

Said Mrs. Keziah:—"I'm a-looking forward to the telling of my good man. But I lay he'll be for sayun' next, that he'll be all to blame if the wedding turn out ill."

"How can ye put that down to him, to lay it at his door? The fault is none of his, Cousin Keziah." Thus Widow Thrale.

"Truly the fault be none of his. But thou doesna knaw Ste'aphen Solmes as I do. He'll be for sayun'—if that g'woon had a been unlwoaded, Master Torrens had gone his way, and no harm done, nouther to him nor yet to Gwen. But who can say for certain that 'tis not God's will all along?"

Mrs. Lamprey interrupted. There was the child's medicine, to be taken regular, three times a day as directed on the bottle, and she had to take Farmer Jones his gout mixture. "But what I told you, that's all correct," said she, departing. "The gentleman will get his eyesight again, and Dr. Nash says so."

Keziah waited for Mrs. Lamprey to depart, and then went on:—"They do say marriages are made in Heaven, and 'tis not unlike to be true. 'Tis all one there whether we be high or low." This was a tribute to Omnipotence, acknowledging its independence of County Families. So august a family as the Earl's might wed as it would, without suffering disparagement. Anyway, there was her young ladyship driving off this very morning to Pensham, so there was every sign at present that the decrees of Providence would hold good. She, Keziah, had heard from her nephew, Tom Kettering, where he was to drive, the carrier's cart having called at the Towers after picking her up at the cottage. Moreover, she—having alighted to interchange greetings with the household—had chanced to overhear her young ladyship say where she was going and when she would be back. She was talking with an old person, a stranger, in black, with silver-white hair.

"That would be Dave's old Mrs. Picture, Ruth," said Granny Marrable, with apparent interest. She was not at all sorry to hear something of her having arrived safely at the Towers, none the worse for her long drive yesterday. Mrs. Keziah, however, showed a disposition to qualify her report, saying:—"Th' o'ald la'ady was ma'akin' but a power show, at that. She'll be a great age, shower-ly! Only they do say, creaking dowers ha'ang longest."

Said Widow Thrale then, explanatorily:—"Mother will be fretting by reason that the old soul would take no refreshment. But reckon you can't with Wills and Won'ts, do what you may! They just drove away, sharp, they did! I tell mother she took no harm, and if she did, t'was no fault of hers, or mine, I lay!"

Two days later, Widow Thrale went over by arrangement to Mrs. Solmes's cottage to recover her convalescent, Toby. She also travelled by the carrier's cart, accepting the hospitality of her cousin for the night, and returning next day with Toby. Granny Marrable was not going to be left alone at the cottage, as she was bidden to spend a day or two with her granddaughter, or more strictly grandniece, Maisie Costrell, to make up for her inability, owing to a bad cold six weeks since, to accompany Widow Thrale to the first celebration of the birthday of the latter's grandchild, at whose entry into the world you may remember the old lady was officiating when Dave visited Strides Cottage a year ago.

Said she, parting at the door from Widow Thrale:—"You'll keep it in mind what I said, Ruth."

Said Ruth, in reply,—"Touching the two yards of calico, or young Davy's London Granny?" For she had more than one mission to Keziah.

"If you name her so, child." This rather stiffly. "Anywise, her young ladyship's old soul that come in the carriage. 'Tis small concern of mine or none at all to be asking. But I would be the easier to be assured that all went well with her, looking so dazed as she did. At her time of life too! More like than not Keziah will be for taking you over to the Castle, and maybe you'll see Mrs.—Picture...."

"Picture's not her real name, only young Davy he's made it for her."

"Well, child, 'tis the same person bears it, whatever the name be! Maybe you'll see Mrs. Picture, and maybe she'll have something to tell of little Davy. I would have made some inquiry of him from her myself, but the time was not to spare." This Granny had not been at all disposed to admit that another Granny could give her any information about Dave. But curiosity rankled, and inquiry through an agent was another matter.

"Lawsey me, mother," said Widow Thrale. "I'll get Keziah to take me round, and I'll get some gossip with the old soul. I'll warrant she hasn't lost her tongue, even be she old as Parson Dunage's mother at the Rectory. Good-bye, mother dear! Take care of yourself on the road to Maisie's. Put on Sister Nora's fur tippet in the open cart, for the wind blows cold at sundown." Granny Marrable disallowed the fur tippet, with some scorn for the luxury of the Age.

If Brantock the carrier, who drove away with Widow Thrale, promising that she should be in time for sooper at Soalmes's, and a bit thrown in, had been told whose mother she would speak with next day, and when she saw her last, he would probably have said nothing—for carriers don't talk; they carry—but his manner would have betrayed his incredulity. And Brantock was no more of a Sadducee than his betters. Who could have believed that that afternoon Widow Thrale and Granny Marrable went away in opposite directions, the former to her own mother, the latter to Mrs. Picture's grandchild, amid the utter ignorance of all concerned? Yet the facts of the case were just as we have stated them, and no one of the incidents that brought them about was in itself incredible.

Brantock was not told anything at all about anything, and did not himself originate a single remark, except that the rain was holding off. It may have been. His horse appeared to have read the directions on all the parcels, choosing without instruction the most time-saving routes to their different destinations, and going on the moment they were paid for. In fact, Mr. Brantock had frequently to resume his seat on a cart in motion, at the risk of his life. When they arrived at the passenger's destination, the horse looked round to make quite sure she was safe on the ground, and then started promptly. His master showed his superiority to the mere brute creation, at this point, by saying, "Goodnight, mistress!" The horse said nothing.

Widow Thrale had only expected to hear a mixed report of the success of her convalescent's visit, so she was not disappointed. It gradually came out that Seth and Toby had at first glared suspiciously at one another; the former, as the host, refusing to shake hands; the latter denying his identity, saying to him explicitly:—"You ain't the woman's little boy!" They had then dissimulated their hostility, in order to mislead their introducers. They had even gone the length of affecting readiness to play together, in order that they might take advantage of the absence of authority to arrange a duel without seconds. This was interrupted, not because the unrestrained principals could injure each other—they were much too small and soft to do that—but in order to do justice to civilised usage, which defines the relations of host and guest; crossing fisticuffs, even pacifisticuffs, off their programme altogether, and only countenancing religion and politics with reservations. Being separated, each laid claim to having licked the other. In which they followed the time-honoured usage of embattled hosts, or at least of their respective war correspondents. They then became fast friends till death. Widow Thrale was grieved and shocked at the behaviour of a little boy to whom she had ascribed superhuman goodness. A fallen idol!

However, as both were too young to be troubled with consciences, and nothing appeared to overtax their powers of digestion, the visit was considered a great success. In fact, it competed with a previous visit last year, of our Dave Wardle, to the disadvantage of the latter; as Dave and Seth had been too far apart in age, and the only point in which Dave's visit scored was that he was big enough to carry Seth on his shoulders, and even this had been prohibited owing to his recent surgical experiences. The making of the comparison naturally led to the connection of Dave, whatever it was, with the old woman at the Towers, whom Lady Gwen had nigh lost her wits about—so folks said. "But tha knowas what o'or Gwen be!" said Mrs. Keziah. Gwen's reputation with all the countryside was that of waywardness and wilfulness carried to excess, but always with an unerring nobility of object.

Old Stephen had something to say about this, and preferred to put it as a contradiction to Keziah. "Na-ay, na-ay, wife! O'or Gwen can guess a lady, by tokens, as well as thou or I. Tha-at be the story of it. Some la-ady that's coom by ill-luck in her o'ald age, and no friend to hand. She'm gotten a friend now, and a good one!" The old boy did not seem nearly so depressed as his wife's account of him had led Strides Cottage to believe. But then, to be sure, the first thing she had told him when she reached home with the boy yesterday, was Mrs. Lamprey's story of Mr. Torrens's probable restoration of sight. Hope was Hope, and the cloud had lifted. His speculation about Mrs. Picture's possible social status was quite a talkative effort, for him.

Somehow it did not seem convincing to his hearers. Keziah shook her head in slow doubt. "If that were the right of it, husband, the housekeeper's rooms would be no place for her. Gwen would not put it on her to bide with Mrs. Masham."

Old Stephen did not acquiesce. "May happen the old soul would shrink shy of the great folk at the Towers," said he.

"Ay, but there be none!" said his wife. She went on to say that there was scarce a living soul now at the Castle, beyond Gwen and sundry domestics, making ready for the Colonel on Monday. This was a gentleman who scarcely comes into the story, a much younger brother of the Countess, who was allowed to bring friends down for the shooting every autumn to the Towers, and took full advantage of the permission. This year had been an exceptionally good year for the pheasants; in their sense, not the sportsman's. For all the Colonel's friends were in the Crimea, and the October shooting had been sadly neglected except by the poachers. He was now back from the Crimea, but was not good for much shooting or fox-hunting, having been himself shot through the lungs in September at the Battle of the Alma, and invalided home. But he was already equal to the duties of host to a shooting-party, and though he could kill nothing himself, he could hear others do so, and could smell the nice powder. The Earl hated this sort of thing, and was glad to get out of the way till the worst of it was over.

Widow Thrale kept modestly outside this review of the Castle's economies, but when they were exhausted referred again to her wish to get a sight of old Mrs. Picture, putting her anxiety to do so entirely on the shoulders of the Granny, of whose wish to know that the old woman had borne the rest of her journey she made the most. She was not prepared to confess to her own curiosity, so she used this device to absolve her of confession. Cousin Keziah also was really a little inquisitive, so an arrangement was easily made that these two should walk over to the Towers on the afternoon of next day, pledging old Stephen to the keeping of a careful eye on the pranks of the two young conspirators against the peace and well-being of maturity, whose business it is to know the exact amount of licence permissible to youth, and at what point the restraint of a firm enunciation of high moral principles becomes a necessity.

If Widow Thrale had been seized with a sudden mania for the improbable, and had set her wits to work their hardest on a carefully chosen typical example, could she have lighted on one that would have imposed a greater strain on human powers of belief than the presence, a mile off, of her mother, dead fifty years since? How improbable it would have seemed to her that her aunt and her kith and kin of that date should fall so easily dupes to a fraud! How improbable that folk should be so content without inquiry, on either side of the globe; that her own mother should remain so for years, and should even lack curiosity, when she returned to England, to seek out her sister's grave; an instinctive tribute, one would have said, almost certain to be paid by so loving a survivor! How improbable that no two lines of life of folk concerned should ever intersect thereafter, through nearly fifty years! And then, how about her father?—how about possible half-brothers and sisters of hers?—how improbable that they should remain quiescent and never seek to know anything about their own flesh and blood, surviving in England! What a tissue of improbabilities!

But then, supposing all facts known, would not old Maisie's daughter have admitted their possibility, even made concession as to probability? Had the tale been told to her then and there, at the Ranger's Lodge in the Park, the two forged letters shown her, and all the devil's cunning of their trickery, would it have seemed so strange that her simple old aunt should be caught in the snare, or others less concerned in the detection of the fraud? And had she then come to know this—that when her mother in the end, twenty years later, came back to her native land, her first act was to seek out the grave where she knew her father was buried, and to find his name alone upon it; that she was then misled by a confused statement of a witness speaking from hearsay; and that she went away thereupon, having kept a strict lock on her tongue as to her own name, and the marriage she now knew to have been no marriage—had Ruth Thrale been told all this, would it not have gone far to soften the harshness of the tale's incredibility?

That story was a strange one, nevertheless, of Maisie's visit to the little graveyard in Essex, where she thought to find the epitaph of Phoebe and of Phoebe's husband probably, and her father's to a certainty. For wherever her brother-in-law and his wife were interred, her father's remains must have been placed beside her mother's, in the grave she had known from her childhood. But nothing had been added to the inscription of her early recollections, except her father's name and appropriate Scriptural citations; with a date, as it chanced, near enough to the one she expected, to rouse no suspicion of the deceptions her husband had practised on her.

Her consciousness of her equivocal position had weighed upon her so strongly that she hesitated to make herself known to any of the older inhabitants of the village—indeed, she would have been at a loss whom to choose—and least of all to any of her husband's relatives, though it would have been easy to find them. No doubt also it made her speech obscure to the only person of whom she made any inquiry. This person, who may have been the parish clerk, saw her apparently looking for a particular grave, and asked if he could give any information. Instead of giving her sister's name, or her own, she answered:—"I am looking for my sister's grave. We were the daughters of Isaac Runciman." His reply:—"She went away. I could not tell you where" was evidently a confused idea, involving a recollection by a man well under forty of Maisie's own disappearance during a period of his boyhood just too early for vital interest in two young women in their twenties. He had taken her for Phoebe. But he must have felt the shakiness of his answer afterwards. For nothing can make it a coherent one, as a speech to Phoebe. On the other hand, it did not seem incoherent to Maisie. She connected it with the false story of her sister's departure to nurse her husband in Belgium, and the wreck of the steamer in which they recrossed the Channel. Her tentative question:—"Did you know of the shipwreck?" only confirmed this. His reply was:—"I was not here at the time, so I only knew that she was going abroad to her husband." He was speaking of Maisie's own voyage to Australia, and took her speech to mean that the ship she sailed in was wrecked. She was thinking of the forged letter.

Have you, who read this, ever chanced to have an experience of how vain it is to try to put oneself in touch with events of twenty or thirty years ago? How came Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John to be so near of a tale if, as some fancy, they never put stylus to papyrus till Paul pointed out their duty to them? Did they compare notes? But if they did, why did they leave any work to be done by harmonizers?

However, this story has nothing to do with Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. Reflections suggest themselves, for all that, with unconscious Mrs. Ruth Thrale in charge of her cousin by marriage, Keziah Solmes, making her way by the road—because the short cut through the Park is too wet—to the great old Castle, with a room in it where an old, old woman with a sweet face and silver-white hair is watching the cold November sun that has done its best for the day and must die, and waiting patiently for the coming of a Guardian Angel with a golden head and a voice that rings like music. For that is what Gwen o' the Towers is to old Mrs. Prichard of Sapps Court, who came there from Skillicks.

What is that comely countrywoman on the road to old Mrs. Prichard? What was old Mrs. Prichard to her, fifty-odd years ago, before she drew breath? What, when that strong hand, a baby's then, tugged at those silver locks, then golden?