ent back to the cause of
all this trouble, a crime of which she had never known before--her
father's sin.

'The sins of the fathers are visited on the children.' Was it to be so
in her case and Betty's--Betty, whose wailing cry struck her
grandfather's ear when he returned from his sad errand at Bristol, and
had parted from his only son for ever?

Then there came over Bryda that strange regret for the ignorance of
yesterday, as bliss when compared with the bitter knowledge of to-day.
But with the knowledge came tender regret, the longing to remedy the
evil and efface the stain of disgrace from the name she bore.

She said no more to Dorothy, whose huge scissors clipped the square of
gay stuff lying before her as if to make the gaudy quilt was the one
object of her life, but she ran upstairs to the bedroom she shared with
Betty, and found her there, as she expected, exchanging her working
gown, with its large apron, for what was called an afternoon frock, with
a dainty kerchief and white apron.

'I have seen him,' Bryda exclaimed.

'Seen who?' Bet asked.

'The Squire. He is as hard as nails. He will have the money.'

'Why, Bryda, how did you get to the house?'

'I'll tell you, Bet; but,' she said, 'do get me a bit of something to
eat and drink. I am so famished.'

'I wondered what had become of you, but I kept you a currant dumpling in
the oven, and a bit of hash. I'll go and fetch it.'

'Yes, I would rather have it here.'

However distressed the young are, and however perplexed, they do not
lose their appetite.

Bryda ate everything Betty brought her with keen relish, and drank a cup
of cider. Then she said,--'I feel fit for anything now, and now I will
tell you the whole story, and what I have resolved to do.'

Betty was a sympathetic listener, but she did not quite see why Bryda
should go to Bristol.

'No one wants me here.'

'_I_ want you,' Betty said, 'and if trouble is coming, and the stock
sold, and that dreadful young Squire comes here, I shall be frightened
without you.'

'He won't come here any more, Bet; he has made up his mind, and he will
stick to it, and I want to hear what Mr Lambert says about it all. I
suppose it is lawful, if the paper was signed by grandfather, but I
should like to tell the whole story to a man who knows about such
things. Now, I am going to write my letter to Madam Lambert, and I shall
be off to Bristol before the end of the week.'

There was in Bryda's determin