his head, grasped his arm firmly, and led him to the shelter of the
tree. Then she wiped the raindrops from his face with her handkerchief,
shook out her own dress and her wet parasol, and, propping her companion
against the tree, said:--

"There, Mr. Debs! I've heard of people who didn't know enough to come in
when it rained, but I never met one before."

The old man started, lifted his hairy, sinewy arm, bared to the elbow,
and wiped his bare throat with the dry side of it. Then a look of
intelligence--albeit half aggressive--came into his face. "Wheer beest
tha going?" he asked.

Something in his voice struck Sadie like a vague echo. Perhaps it was
only the queer dialect--or some resemblance to his granddaughter's
voice. She looked at him a little more closely as she said:--

"To the Priory."

"Whaat?"

She pointed with her parasol to the gray pile in the distance. It was
possible that this demented peasant didn't even UNDERSTAND English.

"The hall. Oh, ay!" Suddenly his brows knit ominously as he faced her.
"An' wassist tha doin' drest oop in this foinery? Wheer gettist thee
that goawn? Thissen, or thy maester? Nowt even a napron, fit for thy
wark as maaid at serviss; an' parson a gettin' tha plaace at Hall! So
thou'lt be high and moity will tha! thou'lt not walk wi' maaids, but
traipse by thissen like a slut in the toon--dang tha!"

Although it was plain to Sadie that the old man, in his wandering
perception, had mistaken her for his granddaughter in service at the
Priory, there was still enough rudeness in his speech for her to have
resented it. But, strange to say, there was a kind of authority in it
that touched her with an uneasiness and repulsion that was stronger than
any other feeling. "I think you have mistaken me for some one else,"
she said hurriedly, yet wondering why she had admitted it, and even
irritated at the admission. "I am a stranger here, a visitor at the
Priory. I called with Miss Amelyn at your cottage, and saw your other
granddaughter; that's how I knew your name."

The old man's face changed. A sad, senile smile of hopeless bewilderment
crept into his hard mouth; he plucked his limp cap from his head and
let it hang submissively in his fingers, as if it were his sole apology.
Then he tried to straighten himself, and said, "Naw offins, miss, naw
offins! If tha knaws mea tha'll knaw I'm grandfeyther to two galls as
moight be tha owern age; tha'll tell 'ee that old Debs at haaty year