y
don't think so," he observed.

"They mayn't," said Granny Grimshaw severely. "But that don't alter what
is. You're a good man, and, what's more, a man of substance, which is
better than can be said for old Colonel Elliot, with one foot in the
grave, so to speak, and up to his eyes in debt. He owes money all over
the place, I'm told, and the place is mortgaged for three times its
proper value. His wife has a little of her own, so they say; but this
poor young lady as was here this morning, she'll be thrown on the world
without a penny to her name. A winsome young lady, too, Master Jeff. And
she don't look as if she were made to stand many hard knocks. She may
belong to the county, as they say, but her heart's in the right place.
She'd make a bonny mistress in this old place, and it wants a mistress
badly enough. Old Granny Grimshaw has done her best, my dear, and always
will. But she isn't the woman she was." An odd, wheedling note crept
into the old woman's voice. "She'll be wanting to sit in the
chimney-corner soon, Master Jeff, and just mind the little ones. You
wouldn't refuse her that?"

Jeff rose abruptly and went across to the fire to knock the ashes from
his pipe. Having done so, he remained bent for several seconds, as
though he were trying to read his fortune in the dying embers. Then very
slowly he straightened himself and spoke.

"I think you forget," he said, "that Colonel Elliot was the son of an
earl."

But Granny Grimshaw remained unabashed and wholly unimpressed. She laid
down the poker with decision. "I was never one to sneer at good birth,"
she said. "But I hold that you come of a breed as old and as good as any
in the land. Your father was a yeoman of the good old-fashioned sort;
and your mother--well, everyone hereabouts knows that she was a lady
born and bred. I don't see what titles have to do with breeding," said
Granny Grimshaw stoutly. "Not that I despise the aristocracy. Dear me,
no! But when all is said and done, no man can be better than a
gentleman, and no woman can look higher. And there are gentlemen in
every walk of life just the same as there are the other sort. And you,
Master Jeff, you're one of the gentlemen."

Jeff laughed a somewhat grim laugh, and turned to put out the lamp.

"You're a very nice old woman, Granny," he said. "But you are not an
impartial judge."

"Ah, my dearie," said Granny Grimshaw, "but I know what women's hearts
are made of."

A somewhat irrelevant