being sought for to wash themselves and have their suppers, were not
forthcoming. They had vanished. They were found in the Verderer's Hall,
where they had concealed themselves with ingenuity, unnoticed by old
Stephen, whom they had followed in and allowed to depart, locking the
door after him and so locking them in. It was sheer original sin on
their part--the corruption of Man's heart. The joy of occasioning so
much anxiety more than compensated for delayed supper; and penalties
lapsed, owing to the satisfaction of finding that they had not both
tumbled into a well two hundred feet deep. Old Stephen's remark that,
had he been guilty of such conduct in his early youth, he would have
been all over wales, had an historical interest, but nothing further.
They seemed flattered by his opinion that they were a promussin' yoong
couple. However, the turmoil they created drove the previous events of
the day out of Widow Thrale's head. She slept very sound and--forgot all
about her interview with the old visitor at the Towers!

* * * * *

Old Maisie, alone in Francis Quarles as she had been so often in the
garret at Sapps Court, became again the mere silver-headed relic of the
past, waiting patiently, one would have said, for Death; content to
live, content to die; ready to love still; not strong enough to hate,
and ill-provided with an object now. Not for the former--no, indeed!
Were there not her Dave and her Dolly to go back to? She had not lost
them much, for they, too, were away from poor, half-ruined Sapps Court.
She would go back soon. But then, how about her Guardian Angel? She
would lose her--_must_ lose her, some time! Why not now?

What had she, old Maisie, done to deserve such a
guardianship?--_friendship_ was hardly the word to use. An
overpresumption in one so humble! Who could have foreseen all this
bewilderment of Chance six weeks ago, when her great event of the day
was a visit of the two children. She resented a half-thought she could
not help, that called her gain in question. Was not Sapps Court her
proper place? Was she not too much out of keeping with her surroundings?
Could she even find comfort, when she returned to her old quarters, in
wearing these clothes her young ladyship had had made for her; so unlike
her own old wardrobe, scarcely a rag of it newer than Skillicks? She
fought against the ungenerous thought--the malice of some passing imp,
surely!--and welcomed anoth