u see how
sad her eyes were when she looked at us, Mary? I don't expect she has
anyone to play with her all day long."

"And the nurse looked a grim old thing," said Stephen. "You'd better
offer to go and play with her, Norah; you are always wanting a friend
of your own age to play with, and here's one all ready and waiting."

"She doesn't look as if she _could_ play," said Philip. "Come on, Tom,
I want to let the rabbits out for a run after I've given these mulberry
leaves to the silk-worms."

The children had planned to have tea in Weedon Woods that afternoon,
but before dinner-time the sky became so cloudy and angry-looking that
their mother feared a storm, and said that it would be wiser to put off
their picnic until another day.

And at one o'clock the rain began--down it came in torrents, then hail,
then rain again; and the children stood at the windows and watched it,
feeling glad that they had not started for the picnic.

"We shouldn't have liked the wood today," said Dan, pressing up rather
closely to Mary as a loud rumble of thunder sounded very near to them.

"No," said Mary, "I'm glad mother wouldn't let us go; we should have
been soaked through by this time."

Just then Ellen, the housemaid, put her head in at the door.

"If you please, Miss Mary," she said, looking very much inclined to
laugh, "there's a strange gentleman in the drawing-room asking to see
you."

"To see me, Ellen? Are you sure?" asked Mary in surprise. "Didn't he
ask to see father or mother?"

"The master and mistress are both out, Miss," said Ellen; "and he asked
if you were in"; and then she hurried away in answer to a ring at the
back-door bell.

"Oh, Ruth, supposing it's the foreign gentleman!" said Norah.

"Nonsense, Norah," said Ruth; "you never think of anything else."

When Mary opened the drawing-room door, however, she began to think
that perhaps Norah was right after all, and the queer-looking old
gentleman on the sofa was really the foreign gentleman who had come to
live at the Grange.

He wore a pair of very large, blue spectacles, and had a long, white
beard and bushy, white eyebrows which almost met over his nose; and he
had a tight, little black silk cap on his head, and was dressed in a
long, loose black coat, which showed glimpses of a crimson silk
waistcoat underneath.

He was quite a short, old gentleman, Mary saw, as he rose to his feet
and made her a very low bow; and he was very fat, the littl