“Dear Mrs. Spruce!  I am so glad to see you!  You knew me when I was quite a little thing, didn’t you?  And you knew my father, too!  You were very fond of my father, weren’t you?  I am sure you were!  You must try to be fond of me now!”

Never, as Mrs. Spruce was afterwards wont to declare, had she been so ‘took back,’ as by the unaffected spontaneity and sweetness of this greeting on the part of the new mistress, whose advent she had so greatly feared.  She went, to quote her own words, ’all of a fluster like, and near busted out cryin’.  It was like a dear lovin’ little child comin’ ’ome, and made me feel that queer you might have knocked me down with a soap-bubble!’

Whatever the worthy woman’s feelings were, and however much the respectable butler, whose name was Primmins, might have been astonished in his own stately mind at Miss Vancourt’s greeting of her father’s old servant, Miss Vancourt herself was quite unconscious of any loss of dignity on her own part.

“I am so glad!” she repeated; “It’s like finding a friend at home to find you, Spruce!  I had quite forgotten what you looked like, but I begin to remember now—­you were always nice and kind, and you always managed so well, didn’t you?  Yes, I’m sure you did!  The man said tea was in the morning-room.  You come and pour it out for me, like a dear old thing!  I’m going to live alone in my own home now for always,—­for always!” she repeated, emphatically; “Nobody shall ever take me away from it again!”

She linked her arm confidingly in that of Mrs. Spruce, who for once was too much astonished to speak,—­Miss Vancourt was so entirely different to the chill and reserved personage her imagination had depicted, that she was quite at a loss how to look or what to say.

“Is this the way?” asked Maryllia, stepping lightly past the stuffed knight in armour; “Yes?  I thought it was!  I begin to remember everything now!  Oh, how I wish I had never gone away from this dear old home!”

She entered the morning-room, guiding Mrs. Spruce, rather than being guided by her,—­for as that worthy woman averred to Primmins at supper that self-same night:  “I was so all in a tremble and puspration with ’er ‘oldin’ on to my arm and takin’ me round, that I was like the man in the Testymen what had dumb devils,—­and scarcely knew what ground my feet was a-fallin’ on!” The cheerful air of welcome which pervaded this charming, sunny apartment, with its lattice windows fronting the wide stretch of velvety lawn, terrace and park-land, delighted Maryllia, and she loosened her hold on Mrs. Spruce’s arm with a little cry of pleasure, as a huge magnificently coated Newfoundland dog rose from his recumbent position near the window, and came to greet her with slow and expansive waggings of his great plumy tail.