and, after a
glance at the old woman, went back to his guests, while the matron
addressed Mrs. Yates.

"Ye will be wanting something, no doubt. Will it be tea or a cup of ale
posset?"

The old heart in that bosom stirred with a tender recollection of long
ago, as this almost forgotten dish was mentioned, a dish so purely
English, that she had never once heard it mentioned in her American
life.

"I will thank you for a posset," she said, taking off her bonnet and
smoothing her milk-white hair with both hands. "It is long since I have
tasted one."

"Yes," answered the landlady, "there is more refreshment in a cup of
warm posset, than in quarts of tea from China. Wait a bit and you shall
have one of my own making; the maids never will learn how to curdle the
milk properly, but I am a rare hand at it, as was my mother before me."

"Aye, a good housewife was your mother," said the old woman, as tender
recollections stirred in her bosom, "for now I see that it is little
Susan."

"Little Susan, and you know of her? That was what they used to call me
when I was a lass, so high."

"But now, what is the name you go by?"

"What name should a woman go by but that of her own husband? You have
just seen the master. The neighbors call him Stephen Burke."

"What, the son of James Burke, gamekeeper at the castle?"

"Why, did you know him, too?"

"Aye, that did I. A brave young fellow he was, and every one at the
castle up yonder--"

The old woman checked herself. She had not intended to make herself
known, but old recollections had thronged upon her so warmly, that it
seemed impossible to keep silent.

"You speak of the castle as if you knew about it," said the landlady,
eyeing her askance.

"And no wonder," answered the old woman; "people have told me about it,
and I was in the neighborhood years ago, when you were a slip of a
lass."

It was strange, but this old woman, since her entrance to that room, had
fallen back upon phrases and words familiar to her lips once, but which
had not made any part of her speech for years. There was a home sound in
them that warmed her heart.

"Did ye ever know any of them up yonder?" asked the landlady, as she
placed a broad porringer before the fire, and poured some milk into it.

"Yes. I have seen the countess, but it was long ago."

"May-be it was when the young lady was at home. Oh! them were blithe
times, when young Lord Hope came a courting, and we could see them
drivi