oves you more than Scamp, _that_ I
know. Come, now, dry your eyes and eat a bit. There's a nicer cup of tea
than they'd give you at the Hall; for the little brown pot on the hearth
makes better tea than ever comes out of silver. I was a maid in a big
house once myself, and I know the difference."

In answer to this Hetty sat up as well as the pain of her foot would
allow, and flung her arms round Mrs. Kane's neck.

"Oh, keep me here with you!" she cried. "I am tired of being grand. I
will stay with you and learn to be a useful girl, if only you will love
me."

Mrs. Kane heaved a long sigh as Hetty's arms fastened round her neck.
Now she felt rewarded for all the love and care she had poured out on
the child during the three years she had had her for her own. A little
bit of hard ice that had always been lying at the bottom of her heart
ever since Hetty had left her, now melted away, and she said, half
laughing and half crying:

"Come now, deary, don't be talking nonsense. Nice and fit you'd be to
bear with a cottage life after all you've been seeing. Don't you think
the gentlefolks would give you up so easily as that. But whenever you
want a word of love and a heart to rest your bit of a head upon like
this, mind you remember where they're always waiting for you, Hetty."

Hetty sobbed and clung to her more closely, and it was some time before
she could be induced to eat and drink. When she did so the homely meal
set before her seemed to her the most delicious she had ever tasted.

"Oh I am so glad I have found my way back to you," she said; "I never
should have done it if I hadn't got into such trouble. Oh, you don't
know how proud and bad I have been! I know I've been bad, now that you
are so good to me."

After about an hour John Kane came back. He had been obliged to wait to
put up his horses and see to their wants for the night before he could
come home. The message he brought from the Hall was that Hetty must stay
where she was till her foot was better, as moving about was so bad for a
sprain. Mrs. Enderby would see Mrs. Kane about her to-morrow.

The tiny whitewashed room where she slept that night was the one in
which she had slept when a toddling baby, and Hetty wondered at herself
as she looked round it thankfully. A patchwork quilt covered the bed,
and a flower-pot in the one small window, and some coloured prints on
the wall, were its only adornments. But it was extremely clean and neat,
and, in spit