omed to move in the best circles, "I
don't want to go into the house again, for if I was to meet her, I'm
sure I couldn't keep my temper. But I'll say this to you, Captain Asher,
that I pity the woman that's her guardeen. And now, if you'll help my
boy turn round so he won't upset the carriage, I'll be goin'. But before
I go I'll just say this, that if you'd been in the habit of takin'
advantage of the chances that come to you, I believe that you'd be a
good deal better off than you are now, even if you do own shares in the
turnpike company."

It was not difficult for the captain to recognize some of the chances to
which she alluded; one of them she herself had offered him several
times.

"Oh, I am very well off as I am," he answered, "but perhaps some day I
may have something to tell you of the Easterfields and about their
doings up on the mountain."

"About her doin's, you might as well say," retorted Miss Port. "No
matter what you tell me, I don't believe a word about his ever doin'
anything." With this she walked to the little phaeton, into which the
captain helped her.

"Uncle John," said Olive, a few minutes later, "are there many people
like that in Glenford?"

"My dear child," said the captain, "the people in Glenford, the most of
them, I mean, are just as nice people as you would want to meet. They
are ladies and gentlemen, and they are mighty good company. They don't
often come out here, to be sure, but I know most of them, and I ought to
be ashamed of myself that I have not made you acquainted with them
before this. As to Maria Port, there is only one of her in Glenford,
and, so far as I know, there isn't another just like her in the whole
world. Now I come to think of it," he continued, "I wonder why some of
the young people have not come out to call on you. But if that Maria
Port has been going around telling them that you are a little girl in
short frocks it is not so surprising."

"Oh, don't bother yourself, Uncle John, about calls and society," said
Olive. "If you can only manage that that woman takes the shunpike
whenever she drives this way, I shall be perfectly satisfied with
everything just as it is."

_CHAPTER III_

_Mrs. Easterfield._

On the side of the mountain, a few miles to the west of the gap to which
the turnpike stretched itself, there was a large estate and a large
house which had once belonged to the Sudley family. For a hundred years
or more the Sudleys had been impo