“You suffers dreadful, ma’am,” said Mildred Tarnley. “Do you have them toothaches still.”

“’Twas not toothache—a worse thing,” said the stranger, demurely, who, with closed eyes, and her hand propping her head, seemed to have composed herself for a doze in the great chair.

“Wuss than toothache! That’s bad. Earache mayhap?” inquired Mrs. Tarnley with pathetic concern, though I don’t think it would have troubled her much if her guest had tumbled over the precipice of Carwell Valley and broken her neck among the stones in the brook.

“Pain in my face—it is called tic,” said the lady, with closed eyes in a languid drawl.

“Tic? lawk! Well, I never heard o’ the like, unless it be the field-bug as sticks in the cattle—that’s a bad ailment, I do suppose,” conjectured Mrs. Tarnley.

“You may have it yourself some day,” said this lady, who spoke quietly and deliberately, but with fluency, although her accent was foreign. “When we are growing a little old our bones and nerves they will not be young still. You have your rheumatism, I have my tic—the pain in my cheek and mouth—a great deal worse, as you will find, whenever you taste of it, as it may happen. Your tea is good—after a journey tea is so refreshing. I cannot live without my cup of tea, though it is not good for my tic. So, ha, ha, he-ha! There is the tea already in my cheek—oh! Well, you will be so good to give me my bag.”

Mildred looked about, and found a small baize bag with an umbrella and a bandbox.

“There’s a green bag I have here, ma’am.”

“A baize bag?”

“Yes, ’m.”

“Give it to me. Ha, yes, my bibe—my bibe—and my box.”

So this lady rummaged and extricated a pipe very like a meerschaum, and a small square box.

“Tibbacca!” exclaimed Mrs. Tarnley. The stranger interpreted the exclamation, without interrupting her preparations.

“Dobacco? no, better thing—some opium. You are afraid Mrs. Harry Fairfield, she would smell id. No—I do not wish to disturb her sleeb. I am quite private here, and do not wish to discover myself. Ya, ya, ya, hoo!”

It was another twinge.

“Sad thing, ma’am,” said Mildred. “Better now, perhaps?”

“Put a stool under my feed. Zere, zere, sat will do. Now you light that match and hold to the end of ze bibe, and I will zen be bedder.”

Accordingly Mildred Tarnley, strongly tempted to mutter a criticism, but possibly secretly in awe of the tall and “big-made” woman who issued these orders, proceeded to obey them.

“No great odds of a smell arter all,” said Mrs. Tarnley approvingly, after a little pause.

“And how long since Harry married?” inquired the smoker after another silence.

“I can’t know that nohow; but ’tis since Master Charles gave ’em the lend o’ the house.”

“Deeb people these Vairvields are,” laughed the big woman drowsily.

“When will he come here?”

“Tomorrow or next day, I wouldn’t wonder; but he never stays long, and he comes and goes as secret-like as a man about a murder a’most.”

“Ha, I dare say. Old Vairvield would cut him over the big shoulders with his horsewhip, I think. And when will your master come?”

“Master comes very seldom. Oh! very. Just when he thinks to find Master Henry here, maybe once in a season.”

“And where does he live—at home or where?” asked the tall visitor.

“Well, I can’t say, I’m sure, if it baint at Wyvern. At Wyvern, I do suppose, mostly. But I daresay he travels a bit now and again. I don’t know I’m sure.”

“Because I wrote to him lo Wyvern to meet me here. Is he at Wyvern?”

“Well, faith, I can’t tell. I know no more than you, ma’am, where Master Charles is,” said Mildred, with energy, relieved in the midst of her rosary of lies to find herself free to utter one undoubted truth.

“You have been a long time in the family, Mrs. Tarnley?” drawled the visitor, listlessly.

“Since I was the height o’ that—before I can remember. I was born in Carwell gate-house here. My mother was here in old Squire’s time, meanin’ the father o’ the present Harry Fairfield o’ Wyvern that is, and grandfather o’ the two young gentlemen, Master Charles and Master Harry. Why, bless you, my grandfather, that is my mother’s father, was in charge o’ the house and farm, and the woods, and the tenants, and all; there wasn’t a tree felled, nor a cow sold, nor an acre o’ ground took up but jest as he said. They called him honest Tom Pennecuick; he was thought a great deal of, my grandfather was, and Carwell never turned in as good a penny to the Fairfields as in his time; not since, and not before—never, and never will, that’s sure.”

“And which do you like best. Squire Charles or Squire Harry?” inquired the languid lady.

“I likes Charles,” said Mrs. Tarnley, with decision.

And why so?”

Well, Harry’s a screw; ye see he’d as lief gie a joint o’ his thumb as a sixpence. He’ll take his turn out of every one good-humoured enough, and pay for trouble wi’ a joke and a laugh; a very pleasant gentleman for such as has nothing to do but exchange work for his banter and live without wages; all very fine. I never seed a shillin’ of hisn since he had one to spend.”

“Mr. Charles can be close-fisted too, when he likes it?” suggested the lady.

“No, no, no, he’s not that sort if he had it. Open-handed enough, and more the gentleman every way than Master Harry—more the gentleman,” answered Mildred.

“Yes, Harry Fairfield is a shrewd, hard man, I believe; he ought to have helped his brother a bit; he has saved a nice bit o’ money, I dare say,” said the visitor.

“If he hasn’t a good handful in his kist corner ’t’aint that he wastes what he gets.”

“I do suppose he’ll pay his brother a fair rent for the house?” said the visitor.

“Master Harry’ll pay for no more than he can help,” observed Mildred.

“It’s a comfortable house,” pursues the stranger; “’twas so when I was here.”

“Warm and roomy,” acquiesced Mrs. Tarnley—“chimbley, roof, and wall—staunch and stout; ’twill stand a hundred year to come, wi’ a new shingle and a daub o’ mortar now and again. There’s a few jackdaws up in the chimbleys that ought to be drew out o’ that wi’ their sticks and dirt,” she reflected, respectfully.

“And do you mean to tell me he pays no rent for the Grange, and keeps his wife here?” demanded the lady, peremptorily.

“I know nothing about their dealings,” answered Mrs. Tarnley, as tartly.

“And ’t’aint clear to me I should care much neither; they’ll settle that, like other matters, without stoppin’ to ask Mildred what she thinks o’t; and I dare say Master Harry will be glad enough to take it for nothing, if Master Charles will be fool enough to let him.”

“Well, he shan’t do that, I’ll take care.” said the lady, maintaining her immovable pose, which, with a certain peculiarity in the tone of her voice, gave to her an indescribable and unpleasant langour.

“I never have two pounds to lay on top o’ one another. Jarity begins at home. I’ll not starve for Master Harry,” and she laughed softly and unpleasantly.

“His wife, you say, is a starved gurate’s daughter!”

“Parson Maybell—poor he was, down at Wyvern Vicarage—meat only twice or thrice a week, as I have heard say, and treated old Squire Harry bad, I hear, about his rent; and old Squire Fairfield was kind—to her anyhow, and took her up to the hall, and so when sh............