oul as
ever I see! Didn't I never tell you of the little boy as he took in out
of the street, as you may say, this seven years back? and the little
girl, two years after I first come here?'

'No. Do tell me all about them, Mrs Bunch--now, this minute!'

'Well,' said Mrs Bunch, 'the little girl I don't seem to recollect so
much about. I know master brought her back with him from his walk one
day, and give orders to Mrs Ellis, as was housekeeper then, as she should
be took every care with. And the pore child hadn't no one belonging to
her--she telled me so her own self--and here she lived with us a matter
of three weeks it might be; and then, whether she were somethink of a
gipsy in her blood or what not, but one morning she out of her bed afore
any of us had opened a eye, and neither track nor yet trace of her have I
set eyes on since. Master was wonderful put about, and had all the ponds
dragged; but it's my belief she was had away by them gipsies, for there
was singing round the house for as much as an hour the night she went,
and Parkes, he declare as he heard them a-calling in the woods all that
afternoon. Dear, dear! a hodd child she was, so silent in her ways and
all, but I was wonderful taken up with her, so domesticated she
was--surprising.'

'And what about the little boy?' said Stephen.

'Ah, that pore boy!' sighed Mrs Bunch. 'He were a foreigner--Jevanny he
called hisself--and he come a-tweaking his 'urdy-gurdy round and about
the drive one winter day, and master 'ad him in that minute, and ast all
about where he came from, and how old he was, and how he made his way,
and where was his relatives, and all as kind as heart could wish. But it
went the same way with him. They're a hunruly lot, them foreign nations,
I do suppose, and he was off one fine morning just the same as the girl.
Why he went and what he done was our question for as much as a year
after; for he never took his 'urdy-gurdy, and there it lays on the
shelf.'

The remainder of the evening was spent by Stephen in miscellaneous
cross-examination of Mrs Bunch and in efforts to extract a tune from the
hurdy-gurdy.

That night he had a curious dream. At the end of the passage at the top
of the house, in which his bedroom was situated, there was an old disused
bathroom. It was kept locked, but the upper half of the door was glazed,
and, since the muslin curtains which used to hang there had long been
gone, you could look in and see the lead-line