“Hasn’t his mother done that for you?”

“I wish he had spent a year or two at Cuddesdon!  I ought to have seen him before consenting to give him a title at once, but his father and Jenny wished it so much.  Ah! come in here.  Bindon said Lucy Martin was a case for a lady.”

Rosamond’s hearty good-nature was much more at ease among ailing old women than prim school-children, and she gave great satisfaction in the cottages.

Julius did not of course come as a stranger, and had a general impression as to names and families; but he had been absent, except on short visits, for five years, so that Rosamond declared that this was a staple of his conversation:  “Then it was Tom Deane—­no, it was John Deane that married Blake’s son—­no, it was Blake’s daughter that died who is living in the next house.”

They finished with a long and miry lane, lying along the valley, and leading to the cottages of a little clan, the chief of whom seemed to be a large-boned lively-eyed old dame, who, after minute inquiries after “the Lady Poynsett,” went on, “And be it true, Master Julius, as that young gentleman of Squire Bowater’s is one of your passons?”

Julius admitted the fact.

“And be ye going to put he up in the pulpit to preach to we?  ’Pon my word of honour, says I to Sally when her telled I, we shall have little Dick out of the infant-school next!”

“We’re all young, Betty!  Can’t you put up with any one that is not older than yourself!  I’m afraid he would hardly be able to get up the pulpit stair.”

The Rector’s reply delighted Betty; but she returned to the charge.  “No, no, sir, I be coming to hear ye next Sunday.  Sally have turned my black bonnet a purpose.  It be one of the Lady Poynsett’s, as her gave I when my old gentleman was took two years after the Squire—­ when bonnets was bonnets, you know, ma’am.  Now tell me true, be ye to preach morning or arternoon, sir?”

“In the morning, I hope, Betty.”

“Then I’ll be there, Master Julius, to the third seat from the front; but it ain’t becoming for a woman of my age, seventy-nine come Christmas, to sit under a slip of a lad as hasn’t got the taste of the birch off his back.”

“That’s too bad, Betty,” broke in Rosamond, speaking out of conviction.  “Mr. Bowater isn’t so young as he looks, and he was too good a boy ever to need the birch.”

“All the wuss for he,” retorted the undaunted Betty.  “Spare the rod, and spile the child.”

The village wit was left triumphant, and Julius proposed to return by a cross-road leading into the plantations.  Suddenly a scud of rain mixed with whirling yellow leaves sent them hurrying into a cart-shed, where, with a sudden start, they found themselves rushing in on some one.  Who was it?  A girl—­a young lady.  That was evident, as Rosamond panted out, “I beg your pardon!” and the next moment there was the exclamation, “Mr. Julius Charnock!  You don’t remember me?  Eleonora Vivian!”