ent encounter in the kitchen which
old Maisie had been conscious of, she had lost her temper with Miss
Lutwyche; but so might anyone, if you came to that. Cook had come to
that, after Miss Lutwyche left the room, and her designation of that
young lady as a provocation, and a hussy, had done much to pacify Mrs.
Masham.

Anyhow, Mrs. Masham was on even terms with herself, if not in a
treacle-jar, when she sat down by the fire to do--as she thought--her
duty by her young ladyship's _protegee_. She was that taken up, she
said, every minute of the day, that she did not get the opportunities
her heart longed for of cultivating the acquaintance of her guest. But
she was thankful to hear that Mrs. Pilcher had not been any the worse
for her talk with her visitor an hour since. Widow Thrale, living like
she did over at Chorlton, was a sort of stranger at the Towers. But only
a subacute stranger, as her husband, when living, was frequently in
evidence there, in connection with the stables.

Old Maisie was interested to hear anything about her pleasant visitor.
What sort of aged woman did Mrs. Masham take her to be? Her voice, said
the old lady, was that of a much younger person than she seemed, to look
at.

"How old would she be?" said the housekeeper. "Well--she might be a
child of twelve or thirteen when her mother came to Strides Cottage, and
married Farmer Marrable there...."

"Then her name was never Marrable at all," said old Maisie.

"No. Granny Marrable, she'd been married before, in Sussex. Now what
_was_ her first husband's name?... Well--I ought to be able to recollect
_that_! Ruth--Ruth--Ruth what?" She was trying to remember the name by
which she had known Widow Thrale in her childhood. Her effort to do so,
had it succeeded, would have made a complete disclosure almost
inevitable, owing to the peculiarity of Granny Marrable's first
husband's name. "I _ought_ to be able to recollect, but there!--I can't.
I suppose it would be because we always heard her spoken of as Mrs.
Marrable's Ruth. I saw but very little of her; only when I was a
child...." She paused a moment, arrested by old Maisie's expression, and
then said:--"Yes ... why?" ... and stopped.

"Because if I had known she was Ruth I would have told her that my
little girl that died was Ruth. Just a fanciful idea!" But the speaker's
supper was getting cold. The housekeeper departed, telling Lupin to get
some scrapwood to make a blaze under that log, and mak