when they can come into the Mill
and mind cans; and, of course, the boy wants to do his father's work and
be a lathe hand."

Best nodded.

"You've hit it," he declared. "It runs in the blood in a very strange
fashion. Take Sabina's child. By all accounts, his old grandmother did
everything in her power to poison his mind against the Mill as well as
the master. She was a lot bitterer than Sabina herself, as the years
went on; and if you could look back and uncover the past, you'd find it
was her secret work to make that child what he is. But the Mill draws
him like cheese draws a mouse. I'll find him here a dozen times in a
month--just popping in when my back's turned. Why he comes I couldn't
say; but I think it is because his mother was a spinner and the feeling
for the craft is in him."

"His father is a spinner, too, for that matter," suggested Estelle.

"In the larger sense of ownership, yes; but it isn't that that draws
him. His father's got no great part in him by all accounts. It's the
mother in him that brings him here. Not that she knows he comes so
often, and I dare say she'd be a good deal put about if she did."

"Why shouldn't he come, John?"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"I see no reason against. One gets so used to the situation that its
strangeness passes off, but it's very awkward, so to say, that nothing
can be done for Abel by his father. Sabina's wrong to hold out there,
and so I've told her."

"She doesn't influence Abel one way or the other. The child seems to
hate Mister Ironsyde."

"Well, he loves the Mill, though you'd think he might hate that for his
father's sake."

"He's hard for a little creature of ten years old," said Estelle. "He
won't make friends with me, but holds off and regards me--just as
rabbits and things regard one, before they finally run away. I pretend I
don't notice it. He'll listen and even talk if I meet him with his
mother; but if I meet him alone, he flies. He generally bolts through a
hole in the hedge, or somewhere."

"He links you up with Mister Raymond," explained Mr. Best. "He knows you
live at North Hill House, and so he's suspicious. You can disarm him,
however, for he's got reasoning parts quite up to the average if not
above. He's the sort of boy that if you don't want him to steal your
apples, you've only got to give him a few now and then; and then he
rises to the situation and feels in honour bound to be straight, because
you've lifted him to be y