se, in her fretful voice. "Where are
all the people?"

"Well, there ain't many!" laughed Thyrza. "It's a lonesome place this is.
But when it's a shearin', or a dippin', yo' unnerstand, farmin' folk'll
coom a long way to help yan anuther."

"Are they all farmers about here?"

"Mostly. Well, there's Duddon Castle!" Thyrza's voice, a little muffled
by the tin-tacks in the mouth, came from somewhere near the top of a tall
window--"Oh--an' I forgot!--"

In a great hurry the speaker jumped down from her perch, and to Netta's
astonishment ran out of the room.

"What is she about?" thought Mrs. Melrose irritably. But the question was
hardly framed before Thyrza reappeared, holding out her hand, in which
lay some visiting-cards.

"I should ha' given them yo' before."

Mrs. Melrose took them with surprise, and read the name.

"Countess Tatham--who is she?"

"Why it's she that lives at Duddon Castle." Then the girl looked
uncertainly at her companion--"Mr. Tyson did tell me she was a relation
of Mr. Melrose."

"A relation? I don't know anything about her," said Netta decidedly. "Did
she come to call upon me?"

The girl nodded--"She come over--it was last Tuesday--from Duddon, wi'
two lovely horses--my, they were beauties! She said she'd come again."

Netta asked questions. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was the great lady of the
neighbourhood, and Duddon Castle was a splendid old place, that all the
visitors went to see. And there were her cards. Netta's thoughts began to
hurry thither and thither, and possibilities began to rise. A relation of
Edmund's? She made Thyrza tell her all she knew about Duddon and the
Tathams. Visions of being received there, of meeting rich and
aristocratic people, of taking her place at last in society, the place
that belonged to her as Edmund's wife, in spite of his queer miserly
ways, ran again lightly through a mind that often harboured such dreams
before--in vain. Her brow cleared. She made Thyrza leave the curtains,
and sit down to gossip with her. And Thyrza, though perfectly conscious,
as the daughter of a hard-working race, that to sit gossiping at midday
was a sinful thing, was none the less willing to sin; and she chattered
on in a Westmoreland dialect that grew steadily broader as she felt
herself more at ease, till Mrs. Melrose could scarcely follow her.

But she managed to seize on the facts that concerned her. Lady Tatham, it
seemed, was a widow, with an only boy, a lad of seven