aid Stephen, who had frequently heard
portions of the story.

'She was brought up by her grandmother, and a pretty maid she were. And
she must needs run away with the curate--Parson Swancourt that is now.
Then her grandmother died, and the title and everything went away to
another branch of the family altogether. Parson Swancourt wasted a good
deal of his wife's money, and she left him Miss Elfride. That trick
of running away seems to be handed down in families, like craziness or
gout. And they two women be alike as peas.'

'Which two?'

'Lady Elfride and young Miss that's alive now. The same hair and eyes:
but Miss Elfride's mother was darker a good deal.'

'Life's a strangle bubble, ye see,' said William Worm musingly. 'For
if the Lord's anointment had descended upon women instead of men, Miss
Elfride would be Lord Luxellian--Lady, I mane. But as it is, the blood
is run out, and she's nothing to the Luxellian family by law, whatever
she may be by gospel.'

'I used to fancy,' said Simeon, 'when I seed Miss Elfride hugging the
little ladyships, that there was a likeness; but I suppose 'twas only my
dream, for years must have altered the old family shape.'

'And now we'll move these two, and home-along,' interposed John Smith,
reviving, as became a master, the spirit of labour, which had showed
unmistakable signs of being nearly vanquished by the spirit of chat,
'The flagon of ale we don't want we'll let bide here till to-morrow;
none of the poor souls will touch it 'a b'lieve.'

So the evening's work was concluded, and the party drew from the abode
of the quiet dead, closing the old iron door, and shooting the lock
loudly into the huge copper staple--an incongruous act of imprisonment
towards those who had no dreams of escape.

Chapter XXVII

'How should I greet thee?'

Love frequently dies of time alone--much more frequently of
displacement. With Elfride Swancourt, a powerful reason why the
displacement should be successful was that the new-comer was a greater
man than the first. By the side of the instructive and piquant snubbings
she received from Knight, Stephen's general agreeableness seemed watery;
by the side of Knight's spare love-making, Stephen's continual outflow
seemed lackadaisical. She had begun to sigh for somebody further on in
manhood. Stephen was hardly enough of a man.

Perhaps there was a proneness to inconstancy in her nature--a nature, to
those who contemplate it from a s