“‘They can’t be any one better, can they, baby?’ he answered her, and he tossed the child nearly up to the ceiling.  But he looked worried as he went out.  I saw them drive away, and they looked happy enough.  And oh, miss, I saw them come back.  We were in the porch, me and the children.  Master Horace lifted her down, and I heard him say, ‘Never mind, Marie.’  But she never looked his way nor ours; she walked straight in and upstairs to her room, past my bonny darling with his arm stretched out to her, and past Miss Marie, who was jumping up and down, and shouting ‘Muvver’; and I heard her door shut.  Then Master Horace took baby from me.

“‘Go up to her,’ he said, and I could scarce hear him.  His face was all drawn like, but I felt that silly and stupid that I could say nothing, and just went upstairs.”  Mrs. Bentley put her knitting down, and throwing her apron over her head sobbed aloud.

“O nurse, what was it?” cried Alice, and the colour left her cheeks.  “Do tell me.  I am so sorry for them.  What was it?” It was several minutes before the good woman could recover herself; then she began: 

“She told me, and Dick Burdas he told me, and it was like this.  When they got to the race-course,—­it was the first races they’d had in Rochester,—­all the gentry was there, and those that knew her always made a deal of her, she had such half-shy, winning ways.  And she seemed very bright, Dick said, talking with the governor’s lady, who is full of fun and sparkle.  The carriages were all together, and Major Beaumont, a kind old gentleman who’s always been a good friend to Master Horace, would have them in his carriage for luncheon, or whatever it was.  Dick says he was thinking that she was the prettiest lady there, when his eye was caught by two or three parties of Maoris setting themselves right in front of the carriages.  There were four or five in each lot, and they were mostly old.  They got out their sharks’ flesh and that bad corn they eat, and began to make their meal of them.  Near Mrs. Denison there was one old man with a better sort of face, and Dick heard her say to master, ‘Isn’t he like my father?’ What Master Horace answered he didn’t hear; he says he never saw anything like her face, so sad and wild, and working for all the world as if something were fighting her within.  Then all in a minute she ran out and slipped down in her beautiful dress close by the old Maori in his dirty rags, and was rubbing her face against his, as them folks do when they meet.  She had just taken a mouthful of the raw fish when Master Horace missed her.  He hadn’t noticed her slip away.  But in a moment he seemed to understand what it meant.  He saw the Maori come out strong in her face, and he knew the Maori had got the better of everything, husband and friends and all.  He gave a little cry, and in a minute he had her on her feet and was bringing her back to the carriage.  Some folks thought Dick Burdas a rough hard man, and I know he was a shocker of a lad (he was fra Whitby), but that night he cried like a baby when he tell ’t me,” and Mrs. Bentley fell for a moment into the dialect of her youth.