u to a very agreeable person, Mary,'
Milly said, when we were within a few paces of this solitary
dwelling; 'but old Rebecca is a character in her way, and I make a
point of coming to see her now and then, though she is not always
very gracious to me.'

It was a warm bright summer's day, but the door and the single
window of the cottage were firmly closed. Milly knocked with her
hand, and a thin feeble old voice called to her to 'come in.'

We went in: the atmosphere of the place was hot, and had an
unpleasant doctor's-shoppish kind of odour, which I found was caused
by some herbs in a jar that was simmering over a little stove in a
corner. Bunches of dried herbs hung from the low ceiling, and on an
old-fashioned lumbering chest of drawers that stood in the window
there were more herbs and roots laid out to dry.

'Mrs. Thatcher is a very clever doctor, Mary,' said Milly, as if by
way of introduction; 'all our servants come to her to be cured when
they have colds and coughs.--And how are you this lovely summer
weather, Mrs. Thatcher?'

'None too well, miss,' grumbled the old woman; 'I don't like the
summer time; it never suited me.'

'That's strange,' said Milly gaily; 'I thought everybody liked
summer.'

'Not those that live as I do, Miss Darrell. There's no illness in
summer--no colds, nor coughs, nor sore-threats, nor suchlikes. I
don't know that I shouldn't starve outright, if it wasn't for the
ague; and even that is nothing now to what it used to be.'

I was quite horror-struck by this ghoulish speech; but Milly only
laughed gaily at the old woman's candour.

'If the doctors were as plain-spoken as you, I daresay they'd say
pretty much the same kind of thing, Mrs. Thatcher,' she said. 'How's
your grandson?'

'O, he's well enough, Miss Darrell. Naught's never in danger.--Peter,
come here, and see the young ladies.'

A poor, feeble, pale-faced, semi-idiotic-looking boy came slowly out
of the dark little bedroom, and stood grinning at us. He had the
white sickly aspect of a creature reared without the influence of
air and light; and I pitied him intensely as he stood there staring
and grinning in that dreadful hopeless manner.

'Poor Peter!' He's no better, I'm afraid,' said Milly gently.

'No, miss, nor never will be. He knows more than people think, and
has queer cunning ways of his own; but he'll never be any better or
wiser than he is now.'

'Not if you were to take as much pains with him as you d