er letters to her friends
had not preceded her, so there was no carriage in waiting, and but for
Derrick she would have been thrown entirely upon her own resources. But
after their mutual introduction the two were friends at once, and before
he had put her into the cab, Derrick had begun to understand what it was
that led the Reverend Paul to think her an exceptional girl. She knew
where her trunks were, and was quite definite upon the subject of what
must be done with them. Though pretty and frail looking enough, there
was no suggestion of helplessness about her. When she was safely seated
in the cab, she spoke to Derrick through the open window.

"If you will come to the Rectory to-night, and let papa thank you," she
said, "we shall all be very glad. Mr. Grace will be there, you know, and
I have a great many questions to ask which I think you must be able to
answer."

Derrick went back to his work, thinking about Miss Barholm, of course.
She was different from other girls, he felt, not only in her fragile
frame and delicate face, but with another more subtle and less easily
defined difference. There was a suggestion of the development in a child
of the soul of a woman.

Going down to the mine, Derrick found on approaching that there was some
commotion among the workers at the pit's mouth, and before he turned
in to his office, he paused upon the threshold for a few minutes to see
what it meant. But it was not a disturbance with which it was easy for
an outsider to interfere. A knot of women drawn away from their work
by some prevailing excitement, were gathered together around a girl--a
pretty but pale and haggard creature, with a helpless, despairing
face--who stood at bay in the midst of them, clasping a child to her
bosom--a target for all eyes. It was a wretched sight, and told its own
story.

"Wheer ha' yo' been, Liz?" Derrick heard two or three voices exclaim at
once. "What did you coom back for? This is what thy handsome face has
browt thee to, is it?"

And then the girl, white, wild-eyed and breathless with excitement,
turned on them, panting, bursting into passionate tears.

"Let me a-be:" she cried, sobbing. "There's none of yo' need to talk.
Let me a-be! I didna coom back to ax nowt fro' none on you! Eh Joan!
Joan Lowrie?"

Derrick turned to ascertain the meaning of this cry of appeal, but
almost before he had time to do so, Joan herself had borne down upon
the group; she had pushed her way through