remarked that I ought to have fair play and 'law.'
Kiomi said she hoped he would not catch me. The tramp winced with
vexation, and the gipsies chaffed him. I thanked them in my heart for
their loyal conduct. Creeping under cover of the dell I passed round to
the road over a knoll of firs as quick as my feet could carry me, and
had just cried, 'Now I'm safe'; when a lady stepping from a carriage
on the road, caught me in her arms and hugged me blind. It was my aunt
Dorothy.

CHAPTER VIII. JANET ILCHESTER

I was a prisoner, captured by fraud, and with five shillings and a penny
still remaining to me for an assurance of my power to enjoy freedom.
Osric and Kiomi did not show themselves on the road, they answered none
of my shouts.

'She is afraid to look me in the face,' I said, keeping my anger on
Kiomi.

'Harry, Harry,' said my aunt, 'they must have seen me here; do you
grieve, and you have me, dear?'

Her eager brown eyes devoured me while I stood panting to be happy, if
only I might fling my money at Kiomi's feet, and tell her, 'There, take
all I have; I hate you!' One minute I was curiously perusing the soft
shade of a moustache on my aunt's upper lip; the next, we jumped into
the carriage, and she was my dear aunt Dorothy again, and the world
began rolling another way.

The gipsies had made an appointment to deliver me over to my aunt;
Farmer Eckerthy had spoken of me to my grandfather; the tramp had
fetched Mr. Rippenger on the scene. Rippenger paid the tramp, I dare
say; my grandfather paid Rippenger's bill and for Saddlebank's goose;
my aunt paid the gipsies, and I think it doubtful that they handed the
tramp a share, so he came to the end of his list of benefits from not
asking questions.

I returned to Riversley more of a man than most boys of my age, and
more of a child. A small child would not have sulked as I did at Kiomi's
behaviour; but I met my grandfather's ridiculous politeness with a man's
indifference.

'So you're back, sir, are you!'

'I am, sir.'

'Ran like a hare, 'stead of a fox, eh?'

'I didn't run like either, sir.'

'Do you ride?'

'Yes, sir; a horse.'

That was his greeting and how I took it. I had not run away from him, so
I had a quiet conscience.

He said, shortly after, 'Look here; your name is Harry Richmond in my
house--do you understand? My servants have orders to call you Master
Harry Richmond, according to your christening. You were born here, sir,
you will