The house-door was left wide open between the departure and return of the mourners; a superstition of the people demands this.  The Peckovers brought back with them some half a dozen relatives and friends, invited to a late dinner.  The meal had been in preparation at an eating-house close by, and was now speedily made ready in the parlour.  A liberal supply of various ales was furnished by the agency of a pot-boy (Jane’s absence being much felt), and in the course of half an hour or so the company were sufficiently restored to address themselves anew to the bottles and decanters.  Mrs. Gully was now permitted to obey her instincts; the natural result could be attributed to overstrung feelings.

Just when the mourners had grown noisily hilarious, testifying thereby to the respectability with which things were being conducted to the very end, Mrs. Peckover became aware of a knocking at the front-door.  She bade her daughter go and see who it was.  Clem, speedily returning, beckoned her mother from among the guests.

’It’s somebody wants to know if there ain’t somebody called Snowdon livin’ ‘ere,’ she whispered in a tone of alarm.  ‘An old man.’

Mrs. Peckover never drank more than was consistent with the perfect clearness of her brain.  At present she had very red cheeks, and her cat-like eyes gleamed noticeably, but any kind of business would have found her as shrewdly competent as ever.

‘What did you say?’ she whispered savagely

‘Said I’d come an’ ask.’

’You stay ‘ere.  Don’t say nothink.’

Mrs. Peckover left the room, closed the door behind her, and went along the passage.  On the doorstep stood a man with white hair, wearing an unusual kind of cloak and a strange hat.  He looked at the landlady without speaking.

‘What was you wantin’, mister?’

‘I have been told,’ replied the man in a clear, grave voice, ’that a child of the name of Snowdon lives in your house, ma’am.’

‘Eh?  Who told you that?’

’The people next door but one.  I’ve been asking at many houses in the neighbourhood.  There used to be relations of mine lived somewhere here; I don’t know the house, nor the street exactly.  The name isn’t so very common.  If you don’t mind, I should like to ask you who the child’s parents was.’

Mrs. Peckover’s eyes were searching the speaker with the utmost closeness

‘I don’t mind tellin’ you,’ she said, ’that there is a child of that name in the ’ouse, a young girl, at least.  Though I don’t rightly know her age, I take her for fourteen or fifteen.’

The old man seemed to consult his recollections.

‘If it’s anyone I’m thinking of,’ he said slowly, ’she can’t be quite as old as that.’

The woman’s face changed; she looked away for a moment.

‘Well, as I was sayin’, I don’t rightly know her age.  Any way, I’m responsible for her.  I’ve been a mother to her, an’ a good mother—­ though I say it myself—­these six years or more.  I look on her now as a child o’ my own.  I don’t know who you may be, mister.  P’r’aps you’ve come from abroad?’