Minette jumped off her lap when Rowland entered, and ran towards him, with a book in one hand, and a doll in the other.

’Look, uncle, what this kind lady has brought me; and she has made mamma quite well.  She has been laughing like she used to laugh.  Oh, uncle, I love her very much, don’t you?’

Rowland did not say ‘yes,’ but went up to Miss Gwynne, and with all his heart,—­

’Oh, Miss Gwynne, how can we ever thank you enough for all this kindness?’

‘By not thanking me at all,’ replied Miss Gwynne, stooping to pick up a book, doubtless to conceal a very decided increase of colour.

These were the first genuine and natural words that Rowland had spoken to Miss Gwynne since those fatal sentences under the great oak in her father’s park.

‘It is all like a dream,’ said Netta, passing her hand over her eyes and forehead, as she did constantly, as if to clear away some cloud that obscured her memory.  ’If mother were only here, it would be quite home-like.’

Truly Gladys had made the room almost a pleasant place.  The books and work she had brought with her, were already on the tables, and the flowers filled all the old-fashioned vases, taken from the mantelpiece.  The fire was bright, and the hearth swept, and poor Netta and Minette were neat and clean.

‘Uncle, what have you done with the geranium?’ suddenly asked Minette.

‘I left it at home, dear.’

‘How cross of you, uncle, to let the pretty flower die.’

’I put it in water, Minette, because it came from Glanyravon, where your mother and I were born, and where your grandfather and grandmother live.’

’I don’t like grandmamma, uncle, she was so fat, and talked so strangely.’

’You should not say that; but you have another grandmother whom you have never seen.’

’Shall we go to her, mammy dear? and will you come, Uncle Rowland? and shall the kind lady come, and Gladys? and then we can gather those pretty flowers.  I saw them growing once at the Crystal Palace, and they would not let me pick them.’

Netta forgot her grief, Rowland his sermon, Miss Gwynne her dignity, in talking to Minette of Glanyravon and its inhabitants; and, by degrees, they fell into a conversation upon old friends and old times, that ended in the days when they played together as children in the garden at the vicarage, whilst the squire and his lady were paying their periodical visits to the vicar and his lady.

Unconsciously it oozed out how every incident of those childish games was remembered and treasured up by Rowland, as well as the meetings of a more advanced age, when, as a Rugby boy, he tried to make himself agreeable to the young heiress, who bestowed no thought on him.

But Rowland suddenly remembered that he was treading on dangerous ground, and must not forget who he was, and who Miss Gwynne was.  Those words always came to haunt him, whenever he felt more than usually happy; and how could he feel happy for one moment, with Netta possibly dying, and Howel an exile for forgery.  Poor fellow, it was only a passing gleam through the mists of a hard life; let him enjoy it.