," said Elsie. "Thirty-four years is a long time, however; I may,
perhaps, get rid of some of my own Scotticisms by that time."

"I knew Hogarth of Cross Hall, very well, when I was young," said Mrs.
Peck. "Do you mean to say you was brought up there?"

"Mr. Hogarth was my uncle," said Elsie.

"Oh, you must be a daughter of his sister Mary's; I fancy there was
only the one daughter that lived to grow up. But if Cross Hall was your
uncle, how came you to be in this situation?" said Mrs. Peck, with
feigned astonishment.

"My sister and I were educated by him; he was exceedingly kind to us as
long as he lived."

"But his property did not come to you;--the heir-at-law swallowed up
all," said Mrs. Peck, with a fierce glare in her eyes that she could
not quite subdue. "It is very hard on you."

"We have felt it rather hard," said Elsie; "but still things have been
worse for us at one time than they are now. Jane and I can earn our own
living, and that is the position of most people in the world."

"What would you give now," said Mrs. Peck, "if you could get back to
Cross Hall, and be just as you used to be?"

"I cannot say what I would give," said Elsie. "But it is impossible.
Unless we could restore my poor uncle to life, things could never be
again as they used to be."

"And the new man might have helped you, and not have driven you to seek
service at the ends of the earth. Would you not like to serve him out?"
said Mrs. Peck with the same subdued fierceness as before.

Elsie's instinctive sincerity would have led her to justify Francis, by
explaining about the will, but she felt reluctant to say anything to
this strange woman that she could help. Besides, though she knew
nothing of the letter that had been sent by Mrs. Peck to her cousin,
and left unanswered, at Mr. Phillips's earnest request, she was
beginning to suspect something of the truth. Mrs. Peck's courting her
so assiduously had puzzled her; and now the interest she felt in this
story, which was all the more apparent to a keen observer from the
efforts she made to conceal it, showed that she knew more about the
matter than she liked at once to disclose.

Elsie had a good eye for likenesses, and could see family resemblances
where no one else could; and it had always struck her as very
remarkable that there was not the slightest resemblance between Francis
and her uncle, nor between him and any other member of the family whom
she had seen or whose por