“Just as happy as a bird,” answered Hollingsworth.

“Then, gentlemen,” said our guest apprehensively,” I don’t think it well for me to go any farther.  I crept hitherward only to ask about Priscilla; and now that you have told me such good news, perhaps I can do no better than to creep back again.  If she were to see this old face of mine, the child would remember some very sad times which we have spent together.  Some very sad times, indeed!  She has forgotten them, I know,—­them and me,—­else she could not be so happy, nor have a bloom in her cheeks.  Yes—­yes—­yes,” continued he, still with the same torpid utterance; “with many thanks to you, Mr. Hollingsworth, I will creep back to town again.”

“You shall do no such thing, Mr. Moodie,” said Hollingsworth bluffly.  “Priscilla often speaks of you; and if there lacks anything to make her cheeks bloom like two damask roses, I’ll venture to say it is just the sight of your face.  Come,—­we will go and find her.”

“Mr. Hollingsworth!” said the old man in his hesitating way.

“Well,” answered Hollingsworth.

“Has there been any call for Priscilla?” asked Moodie; and though his face was hidden from us, his tone gave a sure indication of the mysterious nod and wink with which he put the question.  “You know, I think, sir, what I mean.”

“I have not the remotest suspicion what you mean, Mr. Moodie,” replied Hollingsworth; “nobody, to my knowledge, has called for Priscilla, except yourself.  But come; we are losing time, and I have several things to say to you by the way.”

“And, Mr. Hollingsworth!” repeated Moodie.

“Well, again!” cried my friend rather impatiently.  “What now?”

“There is a lady here,” said the old man; and his voice lost some of its wearisome hesitation.  “You will account it a very strange matter for me to talk about; but I chanced to know this lady when she was but a little child.  If I am rightly informed, she has grown to be a very fine woman, and makes a brilliant figure in the world, with her beauty, and her talents, and her noble way of spending her riches.  I should recognize this lady, so people tell me, by a magnificent flower in her hair.”

“What a rich tinge it gives to his colorless ideas, when he speaks of Zenobia!” I whispered to Hollingsworth.  “But how can there possibly be any interest or connecting link between him and her?”

“The old man, for years past,” whispered Hollingsworth, “has been a little out of his right mind, as you probably see.”

“What I would inquire,” resumed Moodie, “is whether this beautiful lady is kind to my poor Priscilla.”

“Very kind,” said Hollingsworth.

“Does she love her?” asked Moodie.

“It should seem so,” answered my friend.  “They are always together.”

“Like a gentlewoman and her maid-servant, I fancy?” suggested the old man.

There was something so singular in his way of saying this, that I could not resist the impulse to turn quite round, so as to catch a glimpse of his face, almost imagining that I should see another person than old Moodie.  But there he sat, with the patched side of his face towards me.