umed and
fussed, heckled the maid and harried the man, said she didn't see as how
she could, and she didn't think as how she would, sworn there was no
bedding fit to use, and that she had no place for the things--apples and
onions chiefly--that were in the spare room if she gave it up for the
young lass's use, she seemed to quiet down, and going over to Leam,
standing mutely by the black-boarded fireplace, put on her spectacles,
peered up into her face, and said in shrill tones, rasping as a saw,
though she meant to be kind, "Ah, well! I suppose it must be; so go your
ways up stairs with Jenny, bairn, and make yourself at home. It's little
I have for a fine young miss like you to play with, but what I have
you're welcome to; so make no bones about it: d'ye hear?"

"But I am in your way," said Leam, not moving. "You do not want me?"

Miss Gryce laughed. "Want ye?" she shouted. "Want ye, do you say? Nay,
nay, honey, it was no wanting of you or your marras that would ever have
given me a headache, I'll ensure ye. But now that you are here you can
bide as long as you've a mind; and you're welcome kindly. And Emmanuel
there knows that my word is as good as my bond, and what I say I mean."

"Am I to stay?" asked Leam, turning to Mr. Gryce with a certain forced
humility which showed how much it cost her to submit.

"Yes," he answered, less cheerfully and more authoritatively than was
his manner at North Aston, speaking without a lisp and with a full
Cumberland accent. "It is the best thing I can do for you--all I have to
offer."

To which Leam bent her sad head with pathetic patience--pathetic indeed
to those who knew the proud spirit that it reported broken and humbled
for ever. Following the red-armed, touzled, ragged maid to the dingy
cabin that was to be her room, she left her friend to explain to his
sister, so far as he chose and could, the necessity under which he found
himself of leaving his adopted daughter, Leonora Darley, in her care for
a week or two, until such time as he should return and claim her.

"Your adopted daughter? God bless my soul, man! but you are the daftest
donnet I ever saw on two legs!" cried Keziah, snatching up the coarse
gray knitting which was the sole unanchored circumstance in the room and
casting off her heel viciously. "What call had you to adopt a
daughter--you with never a wife to mother her nor a house of your own to
take her to? For I reckon nowt of your furnished houses here and