ook into this claim
of your daughter-in-law's, and maybe make you an offer for it."

"Ah!" repeated Old Josselin, and nodded. "Taken your eye, has she?
Oh, I'm not blamin' your lordship! Flesh will after flesh, and--you can
believe it or not--I was all for the women in my time." He chuckled,
and had added some gross particulars before the younger man could check
him. Yet the old fellow was so naif and direct that his speech left no
evil taste. He talked as one might of farm stock. "But we're decent
folk, we Josselins. It's hard to starve and be decent too, and times
enough I've been sorry for it; but decent we are."

The Collector frowned. "Mr. Josselin," he answered, "I am offering you
to take your granddaughter away and have her educated. What that will
make of her I neither can tell you nor have I means of guessing; but
this I will undertake, and give you my word of honour for it: in three
years' time she shall come back to you in all honesty, unharmed by me or
by any one. By that time she will be a woman grown, able to decide as a
woman; but she shall come to you, nevertheless."

The old man fumbled with a finger, scraping together the flakes of
touchwood in a tinder-box.

"D'ye hear, M'ria? His Honour wants our Ruth to go along with him."

The Collector glanced at the girl's face. Years after, and a hundred
times, he recalled the look with which she turned towards her mother.
At the same instant her mother faced about with a vacuous silly smile.

"Eh?"

"To larn to be a lady," Old Josselin explained, raising his voice as
though she were deaf.

"That would be a fine thing," she answered mincingly, and returned her
gaze to the window and the line of shore.

Chapter XIII.

RUTH SETS OUT.

Manasseh had wrapped Master Dicky up warm in a couple of rugs, and
spread a third about his feet. In the ample state seat of the coach the
child reclined as easily as in a bed. He began to doze while the
vehicle yet jolted over the road crossing the headland; and when it
gained the track, and the wheels rolled smoothly on the hard sand, the
motion slid him deep into slumber.

He came out of it with a start and a catch of the breath, and for a full
half-minute lay with all his senses numbed, not so much scared as
bewildered. In his dreams he had been at home in Boston, and he
searched his little brain, wondering why he was awake, and if he should
call for Miss Quiney (who slept always within hail,