e child you were with?" he asked.

"He died an hour ago."

When they went upstairs, Joan was standing by the sick man.

"He's worse than he wur last neet," she said. "An' he'll be worse still.
I ha' nursed hurts like these afore. It'll be mony a day afore he'll be
better--if th' toime ivver comes."

The Rector and Mrs. Barholm, hearing of the accident, and leaving
Browton hurriedly to return home, were met by half a dozen different
versions on their way to Riggan, and each one was so enthusiastically
related that Mr. Barholm's rather dampened interest in his daughter's
protege was fanned again into a brisk flame.

"There must be something in the girl, after all," he said, "if one could
only get at it. Something ought to be done for her, really."

Hearing of Grace's share in the transaction, he was simply amazed.

"I think there must be some mistake," he said to his wife. "Grace is not
the man--not the man _physically_" straightening his broad shoulders,
"to be equal to such a thing."

But the truth of the report forced itself upon him after hearing the
story repeated several times before they reached Riggan, and arriving at
home they heard the whole story from Anice.

While Anice was talking, Mr. Barholm began to pace the floor of the room
restlessly.

"I wish I had been there," he said. "I would have gone down myself."

(It is true: he would have done so.)

"You are a braver man than I took you for," he said to his Curate,
when he saw him,--and he felt sure that he was saying exactly the right
thing. "I should scarcely have expected such dashing heroism from you,
Grace."

"I hardly regarded it in that light," said the little gentleman,
coloring sensitively. "If I had, I should scarcely have expected it of
myself."

The fact that Joan Lowrie had engaged herself as nurse to the injured
engineer made some gossip among her acquaintances at first, but this
soon died out. Thwaite's wife had a practical enough explanation of the
case.

"Th' lass wur tired o' pit-work; an' no wonder. She's made up her moind
to ha' done wi' it; an' she's a first-rate one to nurse,--strong i' the
arms, an' noan sleepy-headed. Happen she'll tak' up wi' it fur a trade.
As to it bein' _him_ as she meant when she said theer wur a mon as she
meant to save, it wur no such thing. Joan Lowrie's noan th' kind o'
wench to be runnin' after gentlefolk,--yo' know that yoresens. It's noan
o' our business who the mon wur. Happen he's dead; a