h
her. But she believed that years would ripen him, and that the time would
come when she would get along as well with him as she had with his father
and grandfather.

She was not supposed to be a rich woman, and she had not been much
engaged in suits at law, but it was surprising how much legal business
Miss Panney had, as well as business of many other kinds.

When Mrs. Tolbridge had left her, the old lady put away her scrap-book,
and prepared to go downstairs.

"It is a great pity," she said to herself, "that one of the bodily
ailments which is bound to show itself in the family in the course of the
spring, should not have turned up to-day. I want very much to talk to the
doctor about the young man at Cobhurst, and I cannot drive about the
country in such weather as this."

CHAPTER III

BROTHER AND SISTER

There were other people in and around Thorbury, who very much wanted to
know something about the young man at Cobhurst, but this desire was
interfered with by the fact that the young man was not yet at Cobhurst,
and did not seem to be in a hurry to get there.

Cobhurst was the name of an estate a mile or so from the Witton farm,
whose wide fields had lain for a half a dozen years untilled, and whose
fine old mansion had been, for nearly a year, uninhabited. Its former
owner, Matthias Butterwood, a bachelor, and during the greater part of
his life, a man who took great pride in his farm, his stock, and his
fruit trees, had been afflicted in his later years with various kinds of
rheumatism, and had been led to wander about to different climates and
different kinds of hot springs for the sake of physical betterment.

When at home in these latter days, old Butterwood had been content to
have his garden cultivated, for he could still hobble about and look at
that, and had left his fields to take care of themselves, until he should
be well enough to be his own farmer, as he had always been. But old age,
coming to the aid of his other complaints, had carried him off a few
months before this story begins.

The only person now living at Cobhurst was a colored man named Mike,
who inhabited the gardener's house and held the office of care-taker of
the place.

Whenever Mike now came to town with his old wagon and horse, or when he
was met on the road, he found people more and more inquisitive about the
new owner of Cobhurst. Mike was not altogether a negro, having a good
deal of Irish blood in his veins, a