He had been walking to and fro a good half-hour, deeply dejected and turning bitter, when, looking in accidentally at the hall door, he caught sight of Mrs. Wilson sitting all alone where he had left her.  “Why, what on earth is the meaning of that?” thought he; and he went into the hall and asked Mrs. Wilson how she came to be there all alone.

“That is what I have been asking myself a while past,” was the dry reply.

“Have you not seen her?”

“No, sir, I have not seen her, and, to my mind, it is doubtful whether I am to see her.”

“But I say you shall see her.”

“No, no, don’t put yourself out, sir,” said the woman, carelessly; “I dare say I shall have better luck next time, if I should ever come to this house again, which it is not very likely.”  She added gently, “Young folk are thoughtless; we must not judge them too hardly.”

“Thoughtless they may be, but they have no business to be heartless.  I have a great mind to go up and fetch her down.”

“Don’t ye trouble, sir.  It is not worth while putting you about for an old woman like me.”  Then suddenly dropping the mask of nonchalance which women of this class often put on to hide their sensibility, she said, very, very gravely, and with a sad dignity, that one would not have expected from her gossip and her finery, “I begin to fear, sir, that the child I have suckled does not care to know me now she is a woman grown.”

David dashed up the stairs with a red streak on his brow.  He burst into the drawing-room, and there sat Mrs. Bazalgette overlooking, and Lucy working with a face of beautiful calm.  She looked just then so very like a pure, tranquil Madonna making an altar-cloth, or something, that David’s intention to give her a scolding was withered in the bud, and he gazed at her surprised and irresolute, and said not a word.

“Anything the matter?” inquired Mrs. Bazalgette, attracted by the bruskness of his entry.

“Yes, there is,” said David sternly.

Lucy looked up.

“Miss Fountain’s old nurse has been sitting in the hall more than half an hour, and nobody has had the politeness to go near her.”

“Oh, is that all?  Well, don’t look daggers at me.  There is Lucy; give her a lesson in good-breeding, Mr. Dodd.”  This was said a little satirically, and rather nettled David.

“Perhaps it does not become me to set up for a teacher of that.  I know my own deficiencies as well as anybody in this house knows them; but this I know, that, if an old friend walked eight miles to see me, it would not be good-breeding in me to refuse to walk eight yards to see her.  And, another thing, everybody’s time is worth something; if I did not mean to see her, I would have that much consideration to send down and tell her so, and not keep the woman wasting her time as well as her trouble, and vexing her heart into the bargain.”

“Where is she, Mr. Dodd?” asked Lucy quickly.