and left hastily; and on one of the hard,
straight-backed chairs was a sorely-disabled wooden doll, of the
earliest Dutch order, with mere rudiments, of arms and legs, and
deprived by accidents of a great portion of these. The needlework said
plainly that there must be a woman in the dreary house, and the doll,
staring at the ceiling with black expressionless eyes, spoke as
distinctly for the existence of a child.

Suddenly the door of this room opened with a plaintive creak, and a
little woman, on the elderly side of middle life, put in her head.

A bright, energetic, active little woman she seemed,--not the sort of
person who might be expected to put up meekly with dim windows and dusty
floors.

"Marry La'kin!" [a corruption of "Mary, little Lady!"] she said aloud.
"Of a truth, what a charge be these childre!"

The cause of this remark was hardly apparent, since no child was to be
seen; but the little woman came further into the room, her gestures soon
showing that she was looking for a child who ought to have been visible.

"Well! I've searched every chamber in this house save the Master's
closet. Where can yon little popinjay [parrot] have hid her? Marry
La'kin!"

This expletive was certainly not appreciated by her who used it.
Nothing could much more have astonished or shocked Barbara Polwhele [a
fictitious person]--than whom no more uncompromising Protestant breathed
between John o' Groat's and the Land's End--than to discover that since
she came into the room, she had twice invoked the assistance of Saint
Mary the Virgin.

Barbara's search soon brought her to the conclusion that the child she
sought was not in that quarter. She shut the door, and came out into a
narrow gallery, from one side of which a wooden staircase ran down into
the hall. It was a wide hall of vaulted stone, hung with faded
tapestry, old and wanting repair, like everything else in its vicinity.
Across the hall Barbara trotted with short, quick steps, and opening a
door at the further end, went into the one pleasant room in all the
house. This was a very small turret-chamber, hexagonal in shape, three
of its six sides being filled with a large bay-window, in the middle
compartment of which were several coats of arms in stained glass. A
table, which groaned under a mass of books and papers, nearly filled the
room; and writing at it sat a venerable-looking, white-haired man, who,
seeing Barbara, laid down his pen, wiped his spe