“Now are you quite happy?” she asked.  “Quite easy in your mind about the trees?”

“Thanks be to the Lord and you, God bless ye!” said Josey, piously; “I’m sartin sure the Five Sisters ’ull wave their leaves in the blessed wind long arter I’m laid under the turf and the daisies!  I’ll sleep easy this night for knowin’ it, and thank ye kindly and all blessin’ be with ye!  And if I never sees ye no more—­”

“Now, Josey, don’t talk nonsense!” said Maryllia, with a pretty little air of protective remonstrance; “Such a clever old person as you are ought to know better than to be morbid!  ’Never see me no more’ indeed!  Why I’m coming to see you soon,—­very soon!  I shall find out where you live, and I shall pay you a visit!  I’m a dreadful talker!  You shall tell me all about the village and the people in it, and I’m sure I shall learn more from you in an hour than if I studied the place by myself for a week!  Shan’t I?”

Josey was decidedly flattered.  The port wine had reddened his nose and had given an extra twinkle to his eyes.

“Well, I ain’t goin’ to deny but what I knows a thing or two—­” he began, with a sly glance at her.

“Of course you do!  Heaps of things!  I shall coax them all out of you!  And now, good-night!—­No!—­don’t get up!” for Josey was making herculean efforts to rise from his chair again.  “Just stay where you are, and let them carry you carefully home.  Good-night!”

She gave a little salute which included all three of her rustic visitors, and moved away.  Passing under the heavily-carved arched beams of oak which divided the hall from the rest of the house, she turned her head backward over her shoulder with a smile.

“Good-night, Ambassador Josey!”

Josey waved his old hat energetically.

“Good-night, my beauty!  Good-night to Squire’s gel!  Good-night—­”

But before he could pile on any more epithets, she was gone, and the butler Primmins stood in her place.

“I’ll help give you a lift down to the gates,” he said, surveying Josey with considerable interest; “You’re a game old chap for your age!”

Josey was still waving his hat to the dark embrasure through which Maryllia’s white figure had vanished.

“Ain’t she a beauty?  Ain’t she jest a real Vancourt pride?” he demanded excitedly; “Lord!  We won’t know ourselves in a month or two!  You marrk my wurrds, boys!  See if what I say don’t come true!  Leach may cheat the gallus, but he won’t cheat them blue eyes, let him try ever so!  They’ll be the Lord’s arrows in his skin!  You see if they ain’t!”

Bainton here gave a signal to Spruce, and they hoisted up the improvised carrying-chair between them, Primmins steadying it behind.

“There ain’t goin’ to be no layin’ low of the Five Sisters!” Josey continued with increasing shrillness and excitement as he was borne out into the moonlit courtyard; “And there ain’t goin’ to be no devil’s work round the old Manor no more!  Welcome ’ome to Squire’s gel!  Welcome ’ome!”