resque and barn-like cottage, not altogether
weather-proof.

It fell upon a day that Mrs. Jenny Rusker drove over from Castle
Barfield to pay Rufus a visit. She rode in a smart little trap, the kind
of thing employed by the better sort of rustic tradesmen, and drove a
smart little pony. She was a motherly, foolish, good creature, who, next
to the reading of plays and romances, loved to have children about her
and to make them happy. On this particular day she had Master Richard
with her. She kept up her acquaintance with both her old lovers, and was
on terms of rather coolish friendship with them. But she adored their
children, and would every now and again make a descent on the house of
one or other of her old admirers and ravish away a child for a day or
two.

Mrs. Jenny had consoled herself elsewhere for the loss of lovers for
whom she had never cared a halfpenny, but she had never ceased to hold a
sort of liking for both her old suitors. Their claims had formerly been
pretty evenly balanced in her mind, and even now, when the affair was
ancient enough in all conscience to have been naturally and quietly
buried long ago, she never met either of her quondam lovers without
some touch of old-world coquetry in her manner. The faintest and most
far-away touch of anything she could call romance was precious to
the old woman, and having a rare good heart of her own under all her
superannuated follies, she adored the children. Dick was her especial
favourite, as was only natural, for he was pretty enough and regal
enough with his childish airs of _petit grand seigneur_ to make him
beloved of most women who met him. Women admire the frank masterfulness
of a generous and half-spoiled boy, and Mrs. Jenny saw in the child the
prophecy of all she had thought well of in his father, refined by the
grace of childhood and by a better breeding than the father had ever
had.

So she and Dick were great allies, and there was always cake and
elderberry wine and an occasional half-crown for him at Laburnum
Cottage. It was only natural that, so fostered, Dick's affection for the
old lady should be considerable. She was his counsellor and confidante
from his earliest years, and the little parlour, with its antiquated
furniture and works of art-in wool, its haunting odour of pot-pourri
emanating from the big china jar upon the mantelshelf, and its moist
warm atmosphere dimly filtered through the drooping green and gold of
the laburnum tre