ewhat embarrassed for an appropriate answer; but
Flora came to her rescue:

"I have brought you a book, granny; it will amuse you when you are able
to get up and read. There now, no thanks--you positively _must_ lie
down and try to sleep. I see your cheek is flushed with all this
talking. Good-day, granny!"

"The next whom we will visit is a very different character," said Flora,
as they walked briskly along the road that followed the windings of the
river; "he dwells half a mile off."

"Then you will have time to tell me about old Moggy," said Lucy. "You
have not yet fulfilled your promise to tell me the secret connected with
her, and I am burning with impatience to know it."

"Of course you are; every girl of your age is set on fire by a secret.
I have a mind to keep you turning a little longer."

"And pray, grandmamma," said Lucy, with an expressive twinkle in her
eyes, "at what period of your prolonged life did you come to form such a
just estimate of character in girls of _my_ age?"

"I'll answer that question another time," said Flora; "meanwhile, I will
relent and tell you about old Moggy. But, after all, there is not much
to tell, and there is no secret connected with her, although there is a
little mystery."

"No secret, yet a mystery! a distinction without a difference, it seems
to me."

"Perhaps it is. You shall hear:--

"When a middle-aged woman, Moggy was housekeeper to Mr Hamilton, a
landed proprietor in this neighbourhood. Mr Hamilton's gardener fell
in love with Moggy; they married, and, returning to this their native
hamlet, settled down in the small hut which the old woman still
occupies. They had one daughter, named Mary, after Mr Hamilton's
sister. When Mary was ten years old her father died of fever, and soon
afterwards Moggy was taken again into Mr Hamilton's household in her
old capacity; for his sister was an invalid, and quite unfit to manage
his house. In the course of time little Mary became a woman and married
a farmer at a considerable distance from this neighbourhood. They had
one child, a beautiful fair-haired little fellow. On the very day that
he was born his father was killed by a kick from a horse. The shock to
the poor mother was so great, that she sank under it and died. Thus the
little infant was left entirely to the care of his grandmother. He was
named Willie, after his father.

"Death seemed to cast his shadow over poor Moggy's path all her life
throug