f the Abbey. I shall stand and
watch till I see you safe within its doors."

While we were yet in the obscurity of the wood he lifted my hand to his
lips.

"I am eternally grateful to the good fortune that gave me the chance of
serving you," he said.

"I wish you would come and be thanked," I answered in a low voice. I had
the oddest reluctance to leave him, with no prospect of ever seeing him
again.

"Who knows but we may meet again?" he answered, yet did not offer to
tell his name, and I felt shy of asking it.

I turned back on the doorstep when I had come to it, and saw across the
lawn and shrubbery his shadowy shape standing at the edge of the wood. I
waved my hand to him and he lifted his hat. The sun looked out for the
last time from under a purple cloud and I saw him plainly. While I
gazed towards him the darkness came again and I lost him; and there was
Neil Doherty, our butler, opening the door to me and upbraiding me as he
had done when I was a small child.

"Musha, where have you been stravaigin' to, Miss Bawn? and her Ladyship
in and out like a dog at a fair, axin', 'Is Miss Bawn in yet, Neil?' His
Lordship doesn't know, glory be, or maybe 'tis havin' a bad attack of
the gout he'd be. If I was you, Miss Bawn, I'd give up the Creamery, so
I would, or lave it to the commonalty! Sure 'twould be fitter for the
like o' you to be sittin' at home in the drawing-room, playin' the
piano-forty. Yes, your Ladyship, here she is at last. I was just
tellin' her that your Ladyship was like a hen on a hot griddle waitin'
for her."

"Dear child, you are late," my grandmother said, breaking in on Neil's
eloquence, which indeed generally had to be interrupted, for once Neil
started there was no knowing when he would leave off.

"It was Dido," I said, telling half the truth. Not for worlds could I
have told my grandmother of how Richard Dawson had insulted me. "It was
Dido, who caught her foot in a trap. It was an old rusty trap. I do not
know how long it can have been there. But it held Dido fast, and she
would not let me leave her. I should have been there still if it had not
been for the timely help of a gentleman who was passing through the wood
and heard her yelping. She made enough noise to wake the dead."

"Ah, poor Dido!"

My grandmother's attention was diverted to the dog, who was especially
dear to her for Uncle Luke's sake. She sat down now in the great hooded
chair which was supposed to belong to Neil D