ou think so? It is only because I have, living as I do quite
alone, had time to study all their ways, and make friends of them. Do
you see that thrush there? I know him well; I fed him during the frost
last winter. If you will stand back with the dog, you shall see."

Arthur hid himself behind a thick bush and watched. Angela whistled
again, but in another note, with a curious result. Not only the thrush
in question, but quite a dozen other birds of different sorts and
sizes, came flying round her, some settling at her feet, and one, a
little robin, actually perching itself upon her hat. Presently she
dismissed them as she had done the raven, by clapping her hands, and
came back to Arthur.

"In the winter time," she said, "I could show you more curious things
than that."

"I think that you are a witch," said Arthur, who was astounded at the
sight.

She laughed as she answered,

"The only witchery that I use is kindness."

CHAPTER XXIII

Pigott, Angela's old nurse, was by no means sorry to hear of Arthur's
visit to the Abbey House, though, having in her youth been a servant
in good houses, she was distressed at the nature of his reception.
But, putting this aside, she thought it high time that her darling
should see a young man or two, that she might "learn what the world
was like." Pigott was no believer in female celibacy, and Angela's
future was a frequent subject of meditation with her, for she knew
very well that her present mode of life was scarcely suited either to
her birth, her beauty, or her capabilities. Not that she ever, in her
highest flights, imagined Angela as a great lady, or one of society's
shining stars; she loved to picture her in some quiet, happy home,
beloved by her husband, and surrounded by children as beautiful as
herself. It was but a moderate ambition for one so peerlessly endowed,
but she would have been glad to see it fulfilled. For of late years
there had sprung up in nurse Pigott's mind an increasing dislike of
her surroundings, which sometimes almost amounted to a feeling of
horror. Philip she had always detested, with his preoccupied air and
uncanny ways.

"There must," she would say, "be something wicked about a man as is
afraid to have his own bonny daughter look him in the face, to say
nothing of his being that mean as to grudge her the clothes on her
back, and make her live worse nor a servant-girl."

Having, therefore, by a quiet peep thr