surely I saw three plates placed on the
little table.

The old woman seemed to regard my coming as a matter of course, and made
no more ado than if I had left her cottage that morning. Eli, on the
other hand, made much of me. He caught my hands and fondled them, he
rubbed them against his poor distorted face, and looked up into my eyes
as though he were overjoyed at my coming.

"Jasper, I love 'ee--love 'ee!" he cried. "Eli zo glad you'm back. Eli
do knaw, Eli got a lot to tell 'ee!"

"I think we'll shut the door," crooned Betsey as she looked anxiously
around the cottage. "Nobody do knaw who's 'bout. Ah, Maaster Jasper, you
ded a bad thing when you made an enemy of Jack Fraddam. But ther, you be
'ungry, and you aan't 'ad nothin' to ait for a long time. When I knawed
you wos a-comin' I maade a conger pie. I knaw you like that. Conger,
baaked in milk and parsley, Jasper, my deear. That ed'n bad fur a
witches' supper, es et?"

"How did you know I was coming?" I asked. "I had not made up my mind to
come here to-night until I landed in Falmouth. And no one knew I was
coming to Falmouth. How did you know?"

"How ded I knaw?" asked Betsey, scornfully. "How do I knaw everything?
Ef you'd a traited me vitty, Jasper, I'd a done more fur 'ee. You'd be
in Pennington now ef you'd come and axed me; but you wudden. 'Ow ded 'ee
git on at Jack Fraddam's then?"

"Who's Jack Fraddam?"

"Oa, Cap'n Jack Truscott, seein' you're so partikler. The Fraddam family
es a big wawn, my deear."

"What relation is Cap'n Jack to the Fraddams and to you?" I asked.

"Ef I was to tell 'ee you'd knaw, wudden 'ee. But I bean't a-goin' to
tell 'ee, cheeldrean. No, I bean't, but zet up to supper. Then I've got
sum things to tell 'ee 'bout somebody at Penninton, and arterwards I'll
tell yer fortin, my deear. I bean't a gipsy, but I c'n do that."

As I sat at the table with Eli opposite me on the little window-seat,
and Betsey near me, it seemed as though I had not been away at all.
Neither did the old woman show any interest in what I had been doing.

"Why 'ave 'ee come back, Jasper?" she asked, presently, looking at me
with her light, piercing eyes, while she kept on munching with her
toothless gums, until the white stiff hairs which grew on the tip of her
nose almost touched those on her chin.

I did not speak.

"No, you caan't tell," said she; "you dunnaw why yerzelf. You've cum
'cause you caan't 'elp et, my deear. Yer 'art kipt achin' and