her father died early, and she was left atone, the only thing she could do was to take a governess’s place, and she came to us.  She never got on well with the children, for they were young and self willed and rude, and would not learn to do as they were bid.  I never knew one o’ them shut the door when they went out of this room.  And, from having had all her own way at home, with plenty of servants, and money to spend, it was a sore change to her.  But she was a sweet creature, that she was.  She did look sorely tried when Master Freddy would get on the back of her chair, and Miss Gusta would lie down on the rug, and never stir for all she could say to them, but only laugh at her.—­To be sure!’ And then auntie would take a sip at her rum and water, and sit considering old times like a static.  And I sat as if all my head was one great ear, and I never spoke a word.  And auntie began again.  ’The way I came to know so much about her was this.  Nobody, you see, took any notice or care of her.  For the children were kept away with her in the old house, and my lady wasn’t one to take trouble about anybody till once she stood in her way, and then she would just shove her aside or crush her like a spider, and ha’ done with her.’—­They have always been a proud and a fierce race, the Oldcastles, sir,” said Weir, taking up the speech in his own person, “and there’s been a deal o’ breedin in-and-in amongst them, and that has kept up the worst of them.  The men took to the women of their own sort somehow, you see.  The lady up at the old Hall now is a Crowfoot.  I’ll just tell you one thing the gardener told me about her years ago, sir.  She had a fancy for hyacinths in her rooms in the spring, and she Had some particular fine ones; and a lady of her acquaintance begged for some of them.  And what do you think she did?  She couldn’t refuse them, and she couldn’t bear any one to have them as good as she.  And so she sent the hyacinth-roots—­but she boiled ’em first.  The gardener told me himself, sir.—­’And so, when the poor thing,’ said auntie, ’was taken with a dreadful cold, which was no wonder if you saw the state of the window in the room she had to sleep in, and which I got old Jones to set to rights and paid him for it out of my own pocket, else he wouldn’t ha’ done it at all, for the family wasn’t too much in the way or the means either of paying their debts—­well, there she was, and nobody minding her, and of course it fell to me to look after her.  It would have made your heart bleed to see the poor thing flung all of a heap on her bed, blue with cold and coughing.  “My dear!” I said; and she burst out crying, and from that moment there was confidence between us.  I made her as warm and as comfortable as I could, but I had to nurse her for a fortnight before she was able to do anything again.  She didn’t shirk her work though, poor thing.  It was a heartsore to me to see the poor young thing, with her sweet eyes and her pale face, talking away to those children,