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 LIKE LOST SHEEP:
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP: 
 
 BY 
 
 ARNOLD GRAY 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE WIL1> WARRINGTONS," &C. 
 
 " Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small ; 
 Though ivith patience He stands waiting, with exactness grinds He all. 
 
 IN THREE VOLUMES. 
 
 VOL. I. 
 
 ILontion : 
 WARD AND DOWNEY, 
 
 12 YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN. 
 
 1885. 
 [All Rights Resei'ved.}
 
 LEWES S 
 PRINTED BY H. W, WOLFF.
 
 I/- 1 
 
 MliS. SIMPSON-CARSON, 
 
 K.,^^ AS A SLIGHT ]?UT SINCERE ACKNOAYLEDG EMENT 
 
 OK HEU KINDNESS AND UEIl SYMPATHY, 
 
 THIS STORY IS INSCRIBED 
 
 ^ BY THE 
 
 CO 
 
 o AUTHOR. 
 
 I 
 
 I 

 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PRELUDE- 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 PAGE 
 
 25 
 51 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 62 
 
 CHAPTER 11 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 80 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 93 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 106 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 120 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 
 • 
 
 • 144 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 
 • 
 
 • '56 
 
 CHAPTER VIII . 
 
 
 
 . 186 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 
 • 
 
 . 202 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 
 
 . 216 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 
 « 
 
 . 238
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 PEELIJDE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 *' And this, you say, must be the end of it 
 all?" 
 
 " What would you have ? All things, like 
 men and women themselves, must come to 
 an end in some way or other — sooner or 
 later, you know." 
 
 A pause. Then the woman — in reality she 
 was little more than a girl — said : 
 
 "Well, the end of — of all this has come 
 round terribly soon, I think, looking back to 
 the beginning of it, remembering how it 
 began ! " 
 
 VOL. I. B
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 She spoke with self-control — indeed, with 
 a curiously quiet mien — though her heart 
 was full of gall, and her bosom heaved 
 visibly. 
 
 A keen sense of her bitter wrongs was 
 changing love to hate; changing it slowly, 
 perhaps, but surely and absolutely neverthe- 
 less. Already a vague desire, a desire that 
 would grow and grow, for revenge of some 
 kind, had begun to stir in her breast. It 
 could not be that she was powerless in every 
 direction ? Assuredly by some means, legi- 
 timate or otherwise, an adequate revenge 
 was possible to her; would come, with time, 
 within her reach ? Else was there no kind- 
 ness, no pity, no justice in the clear heavens 
 above them ! 
 
 The man, as he answered her, laughed ; 
 not unkindly, but in an easy and a matter- 
 of-fact style which had something of cynicism 
 in it too. 
 
 " My dear Minna," he said, " that ' looking 
 back ' is always an unsatisfactory business, 
 and can do one no earthly good ; at any 
 rate, that is my own experience. It is all 
 pure humbug, believe me, about the chief 
 happiness of life consisting in anticipation 
 and retrospection. The present is everything. 
 Make the best of it while you've got it — the
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 rest is mere folly and waste of time. My 
 child, like hundreds of others before us, we 
 have made a blunder; what remains for us to 
 do now is — well, you may perhaps have heard 
 what Shakespeare says about ' what's gone 
 and what's past help ' — " 
 
 He finished the sentence with a shrug. 
 
 His coolness, his sophistry, the absence of 
 all humanity in his dealings with her, goaded 
 her to momentary passion. Her self-repres- 
 sion gave way, and she smote her hands 
 together with a despair that was very real. 
 
 " Faugh ! " she cried, almost as if her 
 wretchedness were choking her, " I cannot 
 stand it — I will not listen to you ! Who 
 would have believed, a few months back, 
 that it would all come to this ! Ah me ! not 
 I — not my dear father, had he known — indeed 
 not anyone who knew me. Kind Heaven ! 
 what fiends men are, and what fools, what 
 poor fond fools, are women to trust them for 
 a single hour — " 
 
 " Come, Minna, Minna," he interrupted 
 quite gently, as if he were admonishing an 
 angry child, " did we not agree only yesterday 
 that we have had about enough of these 
 scenes ? They are not nice ; they fatigue 
 one. You bore one to death, you know, my 
 dear, with your tragedy fits — you do, indeed.
 
 4 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Besides, if you excite yourself you will suffer 
 for it, recollect. That horrid pain will 
 return, and — " 
 
 " Let it ! " she burst out. " Let it, and 
 put an end to me. The sooner the better. 
 Garth!" 
 
 " Come, be rational," said he, '' and let us 
 talk the matter over sensibly ; not only 
 sensibly, but finally. It is," drawing out 
 his watch and holding it close to his eyes 
 in the fading evening light — '' getting late. 
 It is close upon eight o'clock, Minna." 
 
 With an effort which cost her not a little 
 she checked herself, and regained the strained 
 composure she had lost. As she swallowed 
 or dashed aside the tears which seemed to be 
 burning away her sight, she was vowing 
 inwardly, again and again, that, once she 
 could see the path to it clearly before her, 
 she would take her revenge upon him for 
 what he had done. There could be for him 
 no punishment cruel enough on earth, she 
 felt, as a proportionate reward for his black- 
 hearted perfidy. 
 
 Thouofh the storm in her breast had for a 
 moment got the upper-hand, she well knew 
 that the time for tears and supplications wa& 
 gone by ; that tears and pleadings for mercy 
 could avail her nothing now. The man was
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 as granite; his love for her — if real love had 
 ever existed — vras dead. Being weary of 
 her, he was chafing to be rid of her. That 
 was the naked truth. 
 
 She felt like a bird in a fowler's net, the 
 means of escape from which could come only 
 through death itself. 
 
 With a shuddering sigh she pressed her 
 hands upon her forehead ; then looked at 
 him with a mixture of love and scorn which 
 struggled for the mastery in her despairing 
 eyes. 
 
 " If I were not sure," she said, '' if I were 
 not as certain of it as I am that we — you 
 and I, Garth — shall one day, in another 
 world, have to answer for the sins we have 
 committed in this — were I not convinced, I 
 say, that you are lying to me, lying even now 
 as we stand here together, in your cowardly 
 knowledge of my pitiable inability to help 
 myself, it would not be so hard to bear. 
 But I know that I am your wife, Sir 
 Garth Gilroy — that I am guiltless of any 
 wrong-doing ; that our marriage of four 
 months ago was a legal marriage ; that 
 we are husband and wife in the sight of 
 Heaven and man alike ! You did not lie 
 to me then. No ! I feel it, am convinced 
 of it — though you lie to me now ! You
 
 6 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 showed to me then what jou called our 
 marriage -certificate ; you say now that the 
 paper was false, and that you have destroyed 
 it as being utterly worthless. What can I 
 do ? How am I to disprove these wicked 
 statements ? You took me away to London, 
 where I had never before been in my life, 
 and where I have never since been ; you took 
 me, half-dazed, to a place where you said we 
 could be lawfully married — I loved you, I 
 believed you. I know no more than the 
 simplest child what to do in order to dis- 
 cover — " 
 
 Gilroy ever so slightly shrugged his 
 shoulders a second time. 
 
 " Yes, yes, so you have often reminded 
 me," he threw in. " If you will not believe 
 me, I cannot make you do so. After all, 
 you will have little reason to complain ; you 
 are amply provided for" — taking out a 
 cigar-case and lighting a cigar. " I have 
 explained all that to you, and I don't — I 
 really don't, upon my word — see that you 
 have much to complain about. You might 
 be in a far worse plight than you are, 
 Minna ; you might, indeed." 
 
 She made a gesture of passionate weari- 
 ness, almost of disgust. 
 
 Homeless, fatherless, friendless, money- 
 
 cc
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 less— for I would die in a ditch. Garth, 
 rather than I would touch a penny of your 
 money after this night ! Yes, I might be, 
 as you remark, in a worse plight than I am 
 already in," she cried bitterly; ''but it is 
 beyond me to divine in what way that could 
 happen. Can I go back to my father with- 
 out you ? No, a thousand times no ! Can 
 I earn my living in the manner in which so 
 many women earn theirs, when I have had 
 no education of any service, and when to be 
 cooped up in a house from morning till night, 
 after my life of perfect freedom and un- 
 restraint, would be simply another name for 
 dying a slow death ? Have I a friend in the 
 whole world to whom I can go and tell the 
 story I should have to tell, or who would 
 believe it when it was told ? Grarth, you 
 know that I have not. Oh, you are cruel— 
 you are cruel ! " 
 
 Here she broke down again— this time 
 broke down completely — and, in spite of her 
 proud spirit, sobbed as if her heart would 
 break. 
 
 " It will be wholly your own fault, 
 Minna, you know, if you die in a ditch — and 
 dying in a ditch, by-the-bye, must be 
 deucedly unpleasant, I should fancy," he 
 coldly observed, not looking at his com-
 
 8 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 panion, but scrutinising the ash of the 
 cigar he was smoking. " I wish you would 
 be reasonable. Since this is to be our last 
 evening together, we may as well spend it 
 amicably as not." 
 
 She paid no heed to him ; but, leaning 
 heavily against a tree, wept with her face 
 covered. As they stood there, in the long 
 sweet grass, in the cool August twilight, the 
 old gray country-house, known in that part 
 of Warwickshire as Lonefield Grange, hidden 
 from view, the rich foliage all about them 
 just shivering now and then, their figures 
 were reflected in the water of the mere 
 close by. 
 
 Over the smooth surface of that broad 
 expanse of water the gnats were dancing in 
 gay gray flocks, and the swallows swept low 
 and with bewildering rapidity, wheeling 
 hither and thither in their flight. There 
 was a smell of late clover in the air, and 
 voices of harvest people working at some 
 distance off were borne now and again across 
 the quiet leas. 
 
 Moored to the willow-trunk against which 
 the girl still leant, a boat lay idle in a 
 sheltered creek. It was a steady-looking 
 old boat of the light-punt pattern, its green 
 paint blistered by the summer sun. At the
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 9 
 
 bottom of it were lying a discarded fishing- 
 rod and bait-can, together with a pair of 
 sculls somewhat the worse for wear. The 
 young man, softly whistling, stooped and 
 unfastened the chain ; then stepping into 
 the punt, he held out his hand to Minna. 
 
 " Come," he said, in a light yet authorita- 
 tive tone. " I shall be miles from the Grange 
 by this hour to-morrow night, and I should 
 like to carry away with me, if possible, a not 
 entirely disagreeable recollection of my last 
 English summer evening. Because, you 
 know, if I never return — and life's full of 
 mishaps — this is the last I shall ever see in 
 the old country. We can talk just as well 
 sitting in the boat as we can standing here 
 in this confoundedly dewy grass ; besides, it 
 will be like old times, and the moon will be 
 rising directly. The dog-cart isn't ordered 
 until ten." 
 
 With a repetition of the old impetuous 
 movement she once more brushed from her 
 eyes the tears which blinded them. She 
 stood erect, yet irresolute, looking at him 
 curiously. When she was calmer, she said : 
 
 " Do you want to kill me ? Do you mean 
 to take me out and drown me ? It would be 
 one way certainly — perhaps the best — of 
 getting rid of me, Garth. I have heard that
 
 10 " LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 the mere is horribly deep out yonder there in 
 the middle." 
 
 He laughed pleasantly. 
 
 ** My dear child, nothing was farther from 
 my thoughts. In reality, I was thinking 
 that we should be more private, more alone, 
 out there on the water than here in the park. 
 One of the servants might be strolling about 
 and passing this way. Servants, whatever 
 they may pretend, are spies at the best of 
 times." 
 
 " You are cruel enough for a murderer," 
 she said, shivering. 
 
 " Don't be absurd, Minna." 
 
 " Murderers are always cruel — they must 
 be so," she said, obstinately; "else they 
 couldn't be murderers." 
 
 "You reason without thinking, and think 
 without reasoning," answered he, with some 
 display of irritation. Then he added care- 
 lessly — " My dear, you are wrong ; my nature 
 is essentially a passive one. In a tragedy of 
 any kind I shouldj I fancy, be the slain — 
 never the slayer. Bah ! what nonsense we 
 are drifting into. Jump in, Minnehaha ! " 
 
 A man can always jest about the unknown, 
 because the unknown is never real; just as 
 he, being full of health and ignorant of what 
 the future may have in store for him, can
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 11 
 
 laugh at death and its terrors when standing 
 perhaps upon the identical spot where his 
 grave is shortly to be dug. It was a truly 
 merciful wisdom that ordained that the 
 morrow should be veiled. Notwithstanding, 
 in a way, the present is the future, as surely 
 as " conduct is fate." 
 
 Without another word the girl sprang into 
 the boat, disdaining the proffered aid of her 
 companion's hand. 
 
 " I will take the sculls," she said. " A 
 pull at them will do me good perhaps — will 
 exorcise the fiend in me. I feel to-night 
 like— like— " 
 
 " A murderer," he suggested calmly. " Eh, 
 Minna?" 
 
 She gave him no reply ; but grasped the 
 sculls with the air of an adept, settling her- 
 self firmly upon her seat as one thoroughly 
 accustomed to the work. 
 
 "As you will," said he; and sat down, 
 facing her, upon the well of the punt. 
 
 Half-a-dozen vigorous strokes carried them 
 well out from the bank, the swallows skim- 
 ming around them with their incessant 
 '' tweet, tweet," and dipping their long 
 wings into the smooth dark water. 
 
 Here and there, where the belting trees 
 would admit of it, the fading light from the
 
 12 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 rainbow west came slanting in tremulously 
 upon the beautiful gloom of the place. 
 
 This lonely mere in the park of Lonefield 
 Grange was several acres in extent ; was as 
 lonely indeed as a wilderness, as silent as the 
 Dead Sea itself. Nothing there smote the 
 stillness at this hour, save the restless twit- 
 tering of the swallows and the splash of 
 Minna's sculls. 
 
 Near the margin of the mere, in the solemn 
 shade of the great cool boughs, the pike were 
 evidently on the feed. The girl and her com- 
 panion could see the consternation which pre- 
 vailed amongst the helpless little fishes at 
 the sudden appearance in their midst of the 
 hungry monster they dreaded. 
 
 " The roach and gudgeon are in for a bad 
 quarter of an hour this evening," observed 
 the young man, indolently. " Look, my 
 Minnehaha ! " 
 
 She rowed on in silence ; her head slightly 
 turned towards her right shoulder, her proud 
 brown eyes full of thought and sadness. 
 Her present occupation displayed to advan- 
 tage her handsome figure — the full bust, the 
 firm shoulders, the rounded waist, and the 
 somewhat large white arms revealed by the 
 short open sleeves of her gown : a gown 
 fashioned from some delicate pink material,
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 13 
 
 which, finished off as it was with lace and 
 ribbon, suited her warm beauty admirably. 
 Her chestnut hair was soft and luxuriant, 
 and grew low about her wide white forehead. 
 In age she was two-and-twenty ; but a 
 stranger, looking at her that night, would 
 have said that her years were more. She 
 seemed to have aged perceptibly within the 
 past few hours. 
 
 The man opposite to her on the well of the 
 punt was barely as tall as the girl ; was 
 slight in build, good-looking, as the phrase 
 goes, though decidedly somewhat effeminate 
 in appearance at this period of his life. 
 His hands and feet were small, his clothes 
 faultless in cut, his raven-black moustache 
 was perfumed and carefully curled. He had 
 crossed the threshold of his thirtieth year ; 
 but, unlike the firm-limbed young Hebe 
 before him, he did not look his age by a 
 good half-dozen years. 
 
 " I hope," he said presently, breaking the 
 deep quiet which reigned about them, *' that 
 you are resolving to come round to a sensible 
 frame of mind with regard to the arrange- 
 ment I propose — " 
 
 '' I was resolving nothing. I was think- 
 ing," she struck in curtly, turning her gaze 
 slowly upon him, but not resting as she spoke
 
 14 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 in the measured working of her sculls, " of 
 what I have more than once heard my dear 
 lost father say of you and yours : that the 
 Gilroys — and, Garth, he knows them well, 
 for he has lived with them — were ever a 
 bad, heartless lot ; that the women of their 
 family were seldom good or happy, the men 
 always selfish and hard — nay, more, that 
 they were profligates, liars, spendthrifts; 
 worse even — for they were invariably brutal 
 to their wives. So how can one wonder if 
 the wives themselves were bad and unhappy, 
 Garth ? " 
 
 " Humph ! The old man said that of the 
 Gilroys, did he ? Exceedingly uncompli- 
 mentary and ungrateful of him, I must say, 
 when he owes to them the bread he eats, and 
 has done so all his life ! " laughed Sir Garth. 
 
 " I would to Heaven I had believed him, 
 or had given . a moment's reflection to his 
 words, when I first met you ! " said Minna, 
 with energy. And the boat moved faster 
 over the dusky mere. 
 
 " Unfortunately, one is always wise too late 
 in this world," observed Gilroy, with a smile. 
 '' I wonder what the old ingrate would say if 
 he knew everything, Minnehaha ? " 
 
 " If you mean my father, I know what he 
 would do," she rejoined.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 15 
 
 « Yes ? " 
 
 " Why, kill you — or try to." 
 
 " My dear girl, you are morbid this even- 
 ing ! You can talk of nothing but murder.'* 
 
 " Perhaps," she answered briefly. 
 
 The last streak of rose and primrose died 
 out in the lilac sky ; a mist was gathering 
 over the water, more noticeably so near the 
 bank where the alders grew. Behind the 
 trees which hid the hushed old Grange, a 
 yellow light foretold that the moon was now 
 on the rise. The swallows had disappeared; 
 the bats had taken their place ; the voices of 
 the distant harvest-folk had ceased, and the 
 creaking waggon-wheels were still. 
 
 The narrow punt and its two occupants 
 facing each other might have been a ghostly 
 boat and crew upon a ghostly lake in a 
 dream. 
 
 They were some distance from land^ — the 
 dim moon waxing stronger and stronger — 
 when Minna suddenly uttered a low cry. 
 It escaped her involuntarily. Was it of 
 anguish, of joy, of triumph, of what ? She 
 had bowed herself over the oars as she sat ; 
 her face was hidden ; she remained thus, 
 quite motionless, for seconds. 
 
 " What is the matter ? " asked Gilroy, 
 startled from the reverie into which he had
 
 16 ^LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 fallen. He stared, not without concern, at 
 the girl whom he had called Minnehaha. 
 '' Are you ill ? Is it the pain again ? " 
 
 She lifted her head from her arms and 
 pushed back the hair from her brow. A 
 strange light shone in her beautiful eyes, 
 from which all trace of tears had vanished ; 
 a mocking smile seemed to play about her 
 lips. 
 
 "No, no," she quickly answered; "I am 
 quite well. I — I did not mean to cry out. 
 I was very nearly thinking my thoughts 
 aloud. Odd, was it not ? Garth," she went 
 on feverishly, before he could speak, " I 
 perceive now how foolish I am to talk of 
 refusing to touch that allowance which you 
 propose. Of course, since — since I dare not 
 go home to the Lock, I cannot live on 
 nothing. One must live somehow, I suppose 
 — must not one ? So if you will forgive my 
 obstinacy in the matter, let it be as you at 
 first suggested. Write to the lawyers and 
 tell them what you said you would, and — and 
 that I agree to everything. Garth.*' 
 
 " Ah, now you are wise," returned the 
 young man, throwing away the stump of his 
 cigar and lighting another, with a visible air 
 of relief. " Listen, Minna ! Time is short. 
 I want to get you to comprehend things
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 thoroughly, so that in the future there may 
 be no mistake." 
 
 Ah ! if he could but have guessed what 
 was brewing in her passionate heart and in 
 her busy brain ! 
 
 " I am listening," she answered, meekly ; 
 " though I think it is scarcely necessary to 
 repeat all that you have said before." 
 
 Nevertheless, it was some time later on 
 when Minna shipped her sculls and the punt 
 touched the bank again. As it did so the 
 clock on the cupola in the stable-yard 
 of the Grange struck the half-hour after 
 nine. 
 
 They landed upon the other side of the 
 mere, now chaining the boat to a half-sunken 
 post at the base of a flight of wooden steps 
 which led down from the garden to the 
 water's edge. 
 
 Hard by was an ivy-crowned boathouse, 
 very ancient of aspect, sheltering a dainty 
 skiff and a larger punt. The skiff, which 
 had been a gift to Minna from Sir Garth 
 when she first came to Lonefield Grange, 
 was shrouded in white tarpaulin ; and its 
 outline in the moonlight was clearly defined 
 as it lay upon the black water in the cavern- 
 like boathouse. Some weird bird of nio^ht, 
 at their approach, flew blindly out from the 
 
 VOL. I. C
 
 18 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 boathouse rafters and went screeching in its 
 alarm over the sleeping lake. 
 
 As Minna somewhat tiredly ascended the 
 wooden steps, to which dank green water- 
 weeds clung in slimy masses, and beneath 
 which the water-rats loved to gambol, she 
 glanced at the little skiff tied up in its 
 tarpaulin shroud and shuddered in spite of 
 herself. 
 
 " Are you cold ? " asked Gilroy. 
 
 They were crossing the lawn, where a sun- 
 dial stood ghostlike, on their way to the 
 Grange — a mansion of Elizabethan build, 
 which confronted them upon the slightly 
 rising ground. 
 
 " Cold ? N^ot in the least," she replied. 
 " I was thinking of — " 
 
 " Thinking again, Minna ! Something 
 unpleasant, of course," he interjected. 
 
 '' Yes. I was thinking of the astonishing 
 difference between the man you are, Garth, 
 and the man you can be ; between the man 
 that you are to me now and the man that you 
 were, for instance, when you gave me my 
 little boat." 
 
 " Ah, the subject of ' lost illusions ' is a 
 curious one for contemplation," said he, 
 carelessly. " Life is swamped by them." 
 
 "I suppose we loved each other once," 
 she said, dreamily, speaking as if to herself.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 19 
 
 " Well, I suppose so," lie answered, 
 wondering whether the dogcart he had 
 ordered was ready. 
 
 They entered the old house by the library 
 window, which was partly of stained glass, 
 and which opened to the ground. The room 
 was handsomely furnished with dull red 
 hangings and cumbersome furniture. There 
 were many valuable books upon the walls; 
 the oai^ floor was bare. Above the grotesque 
 " dogs " on the hearth and the tall mantel- 
 piece which overhung them, the arms of the 
 Oilroys figured in oak : three doves and a 
 bloody hand. Beneath the device was the 
 strange motto — 
 
 ^^ Je fais mourirr 
 
 The first Gilroy of any importance had 
 been a traitor and a renegade, having won 
 his spurs and his fortune under the banner 
 of the English Henry upon the field of Agin- 
 court. Upon a table stood decanters of wine, 
 an old Venetian flask of cognac, some glasses 
 and a dish of fruit. 
 
 Gilroy poured out a small tumbler of 
 cognac and tossed off the draught standing. 
 He was beginning to feel for the first time in 
 this hour of parting that his nerves were 
 somewhat shaken and needed pulling 
 together.
 
 20 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " EverytMng is all right — traps and so 
 forth went on this afternoon, I believe ; and 
 — and you understand all that we have been 
 discussing, Minna, I hope?" he said, not 
 without some awkwardness of mien. 
 
 " Yes. Everything that you ordered has 
 been done for you, 1 know," she answered, 
 as steadily as she could. "And I — and I 
 perfectly comprehend everything." 
 
 She was resting on a sofa by the open 
 window, looking rather pale now in her 
 pretty pink gown with the lamplight falling 
 upon it. She stood up with difficulty, and 
 added then : 
 
 *' Garth, I hear wheels ! It is the dog-cart. 
 Let us say good-bye and get it over." 
 
 She extended her cold hand, and he took 
 it at once. He would have held it within his 
 own, but she drew it away resolutely. 
 
 "You leave Liverpool some time to- 
 morrow, I think you told me ? " said Minna, 
 growing paler and paler every second. Her 
 very lips were turning white with a bluish 
 hue about them. 
 
 " Yes ; I shall just manage to catch the 
 10.40 from Leamington to-night, and shall 
 breakfast in Liverpool, if all's well, to-morrow 
 morning. The City of Borne leaves towards 
 evening."
 
 J> 
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 21 
 
 She could not answer jusfe then; words 
 would not come. 
 
 '' I will write to you from New York, 
 Minna," he said, with assumed cheeriness. 
 
 " I would rather that — that you did not, 
 she managed to reply. " And from New 
 York you go — " 
 
 " To the Far West — to Texas, California 
 perhaps; then on to Japan, Egypt, Syria — 
 Heaven knows whither, and I care not ! 
 After all, a man's life — Minna, you are 
 really ill now ; it is useless to deny it. 
 Here, sip this" — making a dash for the table 
 and pouring out more of the cognac. 
 
 However, he was too late. With a chok- 
 ing and shuddering sound, her hands pressed 
 upon her heart, she staggered forward, 
 marble-white, and would have fallen if he 
 had not caught her in his arms. 
 
 A knock at the door. A servant entered 
 the room, bringing with him his master's 
 hat and a travelling-coat for summer wear. 
 
 '' Sir G-arth," said the man, " the dog-cart 
 is waiting." 
 
 *' Here 1 " cried Gilroy. " Look sharp — 
 fetch Mrs. Oliver ! Your mistress is unwell 
 — one of her fainting-fits ! " 
 
 The man disappeared in haste, whilst 
 Gilroy laid the unconscious girl upon the
 
 22 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 couch near the window and moistened her 
 lips with brandy. 
 
 Mrs. Oliver, the house-keeper, a motherly 
 soul well on in middle- age — she had lived 
 for many years at Lonefield Grange — 
 bustled in, all alarm and concern on her 
 mistress's account ; at least, on account of 
 the young girl whom she and her fellow do- 
 mestics had regarded as their lawful mistress 
 during the past summer months of that year. 
 
 Minna's advent at the lonely old house had 
 been a great event. For years Mrs. Oliver 
 and one or two servants had had the Grange 
 to themselves. 
 
 But the days after her arrival in their midst 
 had gone by, and nobody called on Lady 
 Gilroy; and the housekeeper and her ser- 
 vants — as servants will do — like other people, 
 formed opinions of their own, and expressed 
 amongst themselves those opinions pretty 
 freely. 
 
 There was something " queer " about Sir 
 Garth and Lady Gilroy. And the odd 
 separation on this August night confirmed 
 the dark suspicion. 
 
 Presently the colour crept back to Minna's 
 cheeks and lips ; and she slowly opened her 
 eyes to find that her head was pillowed upon 
 Mrs. Oliver's shoulder.
 
 >> 
 
 J> 
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 23 
 
 " Where am I ? What is the time ? " she 
 whispered, struggling into a sitting posture 
 and looking helplessly aronnd her. 
 
 " The time, my lady ? " said the house- 
 keeper, soothingly. " It is past ten o'clock ; 
 and you are here at Lonefield Grange." 
 
 "And Sir Garth — where is he?" she 
 asked, her wits still abroad. 
 
 "He — he is gone, my lady.' 
 
 " Gone ! " 
 
 " Yes, my lady.' 
 
 "Ah," she groaned, "I remember!" Then 
 lifting her eyes mechanically to the carved 
 shield above the mantelpiece, with its yi- 
 human motto and bloody hand — the inter- 
 pretation of which she had learned from her 
 lover in days gone by, when she had noticed 
 one evening the same crest and words en- 
 graved upon the stone of his signet-ring-^ 
 her lips moved again. "Your cruelty has 
 not slain me — you have not yet broken my 
 heart. No, not yet, Garth ! " she muttered. 
 
 " Did you speak, my lady ? '' 
 
 " No. Thank you, I am better now, Mrs. 
 Oliver, and want to be alone." 
 
 The housekeeper rose ; and having placed 
 the wine within reach of Minna's sofa, she 
 reluctantly left the library. Alone, Minna 
 stood up. With one hand pressed for
 
 24 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 support upon the couch-head, she raised her 
 eyes and the other hand, with an im- 
 passioned gesture. Heavenward. 
 
 " Time will show," she cried, " which is the 
 stronger — E-ight or Wrong ! ' Je fats mourirl 
 Ah, no ! you have not killed me yet. I will 
 live — so Heaven help me — for justice and 
 revenge ! ''
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 l^EABLY four years had elapsed since that 
 August night when, in the library of the 
 lonely old Warwickshire mansion, Minna 
 and Sir Garth Gilroy had parted from each 
 other for ever. Now it was the month of 
 June, and the early morning was brilliant 
 with sunshine and roses. 
 
 The sunshine flashed and sparkled upon 
 the dancing waters of the Dane ; the roses — 
 red, white, and yellow — clustered in profu- 
 sion around the porch and windows of the 
 four- roomed cottage at the Lock. 
 
 Adam Ford, the lock-keeper, the picture 
 of human grief, sat upon the bench in the 
 creeper-covered porch, a newspaper spread 
 upon his knee. 
 
 There had been a time when Adam was 
 hale and robust, strong of mind, and stout 
 of limb. He had been a great traveller, too, 
 Bud had seen many foreign sights and cities ;
 
 26 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 but a crushing sorrow of recent years had 
 fallen upon him, and he had grown old before 
 his time. 
 
 He heeded neither the sweet scents which 
 abounded in the garden of the Lock cottage 
 nor the splendid sunlight which turned the 
 river to molten silver and the meadows to 
 fields of gold. 
 
 "Hullo! Mr. Ford; ain't you well?" 
 called out a young voice, clear and lusty. 
 " What's the matter ? " 
 
 On the other side of the Lock, having 
 crossed the first part of the long, straggling 
 and somewhat rickety wooden bridge which 
 connected the Borough meadows with the 
 meadows which lay around Woldney Moat, 
 stood a manly and healthy-looking youngster 
 of ten or thereabout, armed with rod and 
 line. 
 
 With the boy was a sunburnt little maid, 
 three or four years his junior, who carried a 
 small gallipot which contained worms for 
 bait. She echoed her brother's question — 
 
 " What's the matter with you, Mr. Ford?" 
 
 Adam looked up, and shook his gray head 
 hopelessly ; but made no reply. 
 
 So the boy, thinking more of his own 
 delightful errand just then than of the lock- 
 keeper's trouble, said :
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 27 
 
 " We're going to liave a long day's fishing 
 in Woldney park, Mr. Ford ; for father says 
 that Sir Garth will be soon coming home, 
 and then it will be all up with it, father says, 
 and we shan't be able to fish there any more. 
 And Dan'l's going to bring us our dinner out 
 there." 
 
 "Yes, Dan'l is going to bring us our 
 dinner," said the little girl. 
 
 " Master Roger," then said Adam, " I have 
 had terrible news this morning — though 
 perhaps," he added, more to himself than to 
 the children, " it's about the best news I 
 could have had of her, after all ! — and. I 
 want you to ask your father if he'll be good 
 enough to let me have the cart to drive to 
 Redtown in. I want to catch a train, for 
 I've got to go a journey to London, tell him. 
 And will you ask him, too. Master Roger, if 
 Dan'l can come and mind the Lock while 
 I'm gone — Naomi, I daresay, will bring your 
 dinners over into the park — for Coverley is 
 very full of stranger folk, with the Races 
 close here and all ; and there's safe to be a 
 sight o' boats coming through, the day being 
 so fine. Tell him. Master Roger, will you ? 
 that Mr. Pringle sent round the paper to me, 
 and that — and that I read my bad news in 
 the first column on the front page. Say that.
 
 28 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 and he'll understand. In tlie first column on 
 the front page — don't forget." 
 
 " All right," was the boy's willing answer. 
 " Here, Kate, hold my rod whilst I go ! " 
 
 And he ran back along the wooden bridge 
 to his home — Little Borough Mills, commonly 
 called the Little Mills — which was situated 
 just where the bridge began, and took Adam 
 Ford's message to his father. 
 
 " Come over, Miss Katie, and pick a few 
 raspberries till Master Roger comes back," 
 said Adam. And the little lass, nothing 
 loath, and fearless of the sparkling water 
 about the cool dark mouth of the Lock, 
 trotted across the narrow plank above the 
 great gates to pick raspberries in Adam 
 Ford's garden. 
 
 In the rear of the Lock cottage, near to 
 the Margrave high road, were situated the 
 larger mills — Borough Mills proper — where 
 dwelt Mr. and Mrs. Solomon Pringle and 
 their family. These Pringles were more 
 prosperous and well-to-do in every sense 
 than the Harlands at Little Borough Mills ; 
 the mills upon the other side of the water. 
 This being the case, the Pringles, in a 
 measure, " looked down'' upon the Harlands 
 — although Mrs. Pringle would sometimes 
 call her husband "par" and her eldest 
 daughter " Juleyer."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 29' 
 
 Between nine and ten o'clock on that sum- 
 mer morning Adam Ford found himself in 
 the mill-yard of Little Borough Mills; seated 
 in Mr. Harland's spring-cart, with the reins 
 gathered in his hand and his carpet-bag at 
 his feet— the good-natured miller and his 
 wife, both full of sympathy and kind intent, 
 standing by in the hot sunshine. 
 
 "If you can't get back to-night — and I dare* 
 say you won't — why, don't worry," said the 
 miller; ''the mare and cart '11 be quite safe at 
 ' The Roebuck' in Redtown. And Dan'l shall 
 mind the Lock — I'll see to that. He is not 
 wanted in the mill to-day, nor to-morrow 
 either, as far as I know at present.'' 
 
 " You're very good to me, sir," murmured 
 Adam. 
 
 " Don't hinder him, Roger," here gently 
 put in Mrs. Harland ; '' time's precious, you 
 know." 
 
 " If I can only get a last look at her poor- 
 dead face," said the lock-keeper, heart- 
 brokenly, " and drop a kiss of forgiveness 
 — though the Lord knows I forgave her long 
 ago — on her lips, I'll try and be satisfied. 
 Well, good-day, sir — good-day, ma'am — and 
 thank you both for your kindness, I'm sure."' 
 
 " Good-bye," said the miller and his wife 
 together ; and the lock-keeper drove out of 
 the yard and into the lane which, cutting
 
 30 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 througli tlie meadows, led to the Redtown 
 road. 
 
 There was no branch line of railroad in 
 those days, as in these, from the main line 
 to Coverley-on-Dane. If Coverley folk were 
 desirous of visiting London they drove to 
 Twycross or to Redtown and caught the 
 train thus. But it was always the better 
 plan, though the longer way, to go direct to 
 Redtown; because Twycross being little 
 better than a village, the fast trains never 
 stopped there. Redtown, on the other hand, 
 was the principal town of its county, and 
 boasted a jail, a factory, and other places of 
 renown. 
 
 On his way thither Adam more than once 
 took from his pocket the newspaper which 
 Mr. Pringle, seeing what it contained, had 
 thought fit — or rather which Mrs. Pringle, 
 after marking the notice with ink, had seen 
 fit — to send round after breakfast to the 
 Lock cottage. With dim eyes Adam read over 
 for the twentieth time the sorrowful news 
 on the first sheet. And his tears dropped as 
 he read. 
 
 " The poor man will be glad to know that 
 the creature is gone," had said Mrs. Pringle. 
 *' Let him have the paper, par, when you've 
 done with it.''
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 31 
 
 "He shall," said Mr. Pringle, with his 
 mouth full of ham. 
 
 " It's a real mercy she is dead and gone, 
 Solomon," continued Mrs. Pringle, with a 
 virtuous air ; " or as time went on she would 
 have been for coming back to the Lock — 
 the bare-faced thing ! — and with the gurls 
 growing up and that, why, it would have 
 been dreadful, Solomon — simply dreadful I '' 
 
 " So it would, mar ; you're right," said Mr. 
 Pringle. " Another cup o' coffee, my dear." 
 
 Mrs. Pringle replenished her husband's 
 coffee-cup, and then said to their eldest 
 daughter : 
 
 " Pass the toast to your par, Juleyer, my 
 dear ; and don't drop your crumbs on the 
 new carpet." 
 
 " Theirs is awful shabby at the Little 
 Mills," put in the second girl Louisa. " Isn't 
 it, Jill ? " 
 
 Julia, commonly called *' Jill " by her 
 sisters, answered promptly : 
 
 "Lor', yes ! Not a scrap of colour in it 
 anywhere; nor in the drawing-room one 
 •either, ma ! " 
 
 Mrs. Pringle reproved her " gurls " — she 
 had no son — in her own wise maternal 
 fashion. 
 
 " It is not polite or nice, Jill and Louisa,
 
 32 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 to talk in that style about your neighbours'^ 
 belongings, even if they are shabby, and are 
 not so good as our own. It is not every- 
 body, recollect, my dears, that has things so 
 nice as us. And besides, little ladies should 
 be seen and not heard; shouldn't they, 
 
 par ? " . 
 
 "Of course," said papa; "seen and not 
 heard, of course ! " 
 
 *'And when are we to ride in our own 
 carriage ? " cried little Hester, the youngest. 
 " You said, pa, not long ago, that one day 
 we should ride in our own carriage ! " 
 
 " Hush ! " whispered Mrs. Pringle, hold- 
 ing up her finger, a delighted smile beaming 
 over her fat face nevertheless. " What did I 
 say just now about little ladies, Hetty ? " 
 
 Mr. Pringle got up — he was a stout, self- 
 satisfied man, with a very red, whiskerless 
 face and short thick legs — and looked out 
 from the breakfast-room window into his 
 mill-yard, where his own flourishing mills 
 were undergoing repairs and being improved 
 and added-to in a very extensive manner. 
 He whistled softly to himself for some 
 seconds ; then he said : 
 
 " Yes, Hetty, my child, some day — and 
 before not so very long neither — mar and all 
 of you shall ride in your own kerridge.''
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 33 
 
 Jill and Louisa clapped their hands in glee. 
 
 " How grand we shall be, pa, then,'' they 
 cried out ; "as grand as Sir Garth Gilroj, 
 shan't we, pa ? " 
 
 Before noon Adam Ford was in a railway 
 train, being hurried along towards the great 
 city of which the lock-keeper knew hardly 
 anything. He and his grief had a third- 
 class compartment to themselves, and the 
 much-crumpled newspaper was still in his 
 hand, though every word of the message it 
 contained for him was already stamped upon 
 his brain. 
 
 " FoED. — June 9th, at 30, Prince's Street, 
 Brompton, Minnehaha, only daughter of 
 Adam Ford, of Borough Lock, near Coverley- 
 on-Dane ; aged 26 years." 
 
 That was how it ran ; and the same 
 announcement, on that 12th day of June, 
 was in every daily newspaper in the king- 
 dom. A stranger to London and the London 
 streets, it was some time before the lock- 
 keeper arrived at the place he sought. In 
 his heart-sickness and desolate state of mind, 
 bewildered by the noise and traffic and 
 ceaseless press of life around him, after the 
 sweet and breezy solitude of his country 
 home by the woods and river, meadows, and 
 the sparkling weir, he got into wrong omni- 
 
 VOL. I. D
 
 34 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 buses and took wrong turnings at every other 
 step. At lengtL, through the kindness of a 
 passer-by, who directed him aright, late in 
 the afternoon he arrived at Prince's Street, 
 Brompton. 
 
 He found No. 30 a quiet, respectable 
 lodging-house, roomy but very dull, which 
 was kept by a widow of uncertain age, care- 
 worn and somewhat crafty-looking. She 
 looked indeed as if she and life were daily 
 wrestlers in a hard old world. Minutes 
 elapsed however before the door was opened 
 to Adam and his shabby carpet-bag ; for 
 there had been sounds of scuffling and hurry- 
 ing along the passage and on the stairs, as of 
 a person or persons getting out of the way, 
 after the stranger's first knock. 
 
 When all was quiet again, the careworn 
 widow appeared. Adam explained to her at 
 once who he was, and then inquired eagerly 
 whether he was too late. 
 
 "No," the widow told him, hardly above 
 a whisper — the dingy house was horribly 
 silent now — "he was not too late. The 
 funeral would not take place until the next 
 day. The weather had been very warm, she 
 knew ; but they couldn't manage it before." 
 
 The lock-keeper thanked Heaven for it, 
 and then asked whether he might be allowed 
 to see his daughter at once.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 35 
 
 But the landlady explained, with a melan- 
 choly shake of her frowzy cap, that he could 
 not see the body — only the coffin containing 
 it ; for the undertaker's man had been to the 
 house on that very afternoon and had fastened 
 the coffin down. The weather, she again re- 
 minded Adam, had been very warm; he must 
 remember that. What they had done was 
 absolutely necessary, said the doctor — the 
 famous Doctor Dexter, of Cumberland Square 
 — who had attended the poor soul in her last 
 illness. 
 
 " She's in there," said the widow, opening 
 the first door they came to in the entranoe- 
 place. " That was her room." 
 
 Adam entered it reverently, and gazed 
 dully around. It was a good sized room, 
 looking on the street, but poorly furnished — 
 a bedroom and parlour in one. The sun, in 
 spite of the lowered blinds behind which a 
 blue-bottle was bumping himself drowsily on 
 the glass, poured in and showed up the mean- 
 ness of the place. 
 
 There was a bed in a sort of niche by the 
 chimney-piece ; there were a small side-board 
 — very dusty — a table and a few horse-hair 
 chairs. In the centre of the room, upon 
 tressels, stood the coffin, fastened down. 
 
 It was quite a plain coffin, with a plain 
 metal plate, whereon were inscribed, simply
 
 36 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 enough, her fantastic name and the number 
 of her years — 
 
 MINNEHAHA FOKD, 
 Aged 26. 
 
 " Will you leave me for a bit, please ? " 
 said Adam ; for the widow had followed him 
 in. 
 
 She went out, snffing gently, with her 
 cotton apron pressed to her mouth ; and the 
 lock-keeper was left alone with the hidden 
 corpse. 
 
 He knelt down upon the square of faded 
 carpet, flung his arms over the coffin-lid, and 
 laid his gray head upon the metal plate — 
 kissing again and again the letters which 
 spelt her name. 
 
 '' Oh, my poor darling — my poor darling! " 
 he sobbed, " why didn't you come back to 
 your old father ? Your home was with him, 
 my dear, whatever had happened; with all 
 the world against you, your home was with 
 him ! " 
 
 When he came forth from that close and 
 darkened chamber the sun was setting: and 
 twilight was stealing over the city. He was 
 going out, with the intention of procuring at 
 some public-house the refreshment of which 
 he stood so much in need, when on the door-
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 37 
 
 step he met tlie landlady herself. She was 
 coming in, with a jug of beer ^nd a plate of 
 cold meat from a neighbouring cookshop ; the 
 latter being covered with a scrap of greasy 
 paper. Hearing from Adam what his errand 
 was, she begged him to remain in the house. 
 For a wonder, she said, she had both meat 
 and drink to offer him — that in her hand was 
 for one of her top-floor lodgers — and if he 
 did not mind sitting down in her kitchen, 
 she would do her poor best to make him com- 
 fortable. 
 
 Adam was weary, and gratefully consented. 
 It would be all the same in the end, he said, 
 for he would pay her on the morrow tor 
 anything he might cost her. 
 
 At supper, the lock-keeper asked many 
 questions concerning his dead daughter ; and 
 the widow — whose name he then learnt was 
 Mrs. Knibb — told him, apparently truthfully 
 enough, all that it was in her power to tell. 
 Mrs. Ford — yes, she was always called " Mrs. 
 Ford " — (Adam groaned) — had lived now in 
 Prince's Street for nearly four years, and 
 had always appeared to be utterly alone in 
 the world. Had she, since her coming to 
 Prince's Street, always lived a good and 
 steady life? Adam inquired, trembling — 
 wondering how much, if anything, the land-
 
 38 , LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 lady knew of his girl's past history. Oh 
 yes, indeed ! Nobody ever entered Mrs. 
 Knibb's doors, said the widow with queer 
 dignity, that was not quiet and respectable. 
 Adam might rest satisfied on that point. 
 How did Mrs. Ford manage to live ? Well, 
 she was remarkably clever with her needle — 
 
 " She never was very clever with it at 
 home," put in Adam, mournfully. " She 
 was too fond of her freedom and of being 
 out o' doors. She never was much of a one 
 for that sort of thing ; better for her perhaps 
 if she had been, poor dear ! " 
 
 Well, she was certainly very industrious 
 in Prince's Street, flatly declared Mrs. KnibK 
 and it was with her needle that Mrs. Ford 
 had earned her living until she fell ill of the 
 rapid consumption which had just carried 
 her off. 
 
 No ; she had no friends whatever — nobody 
 ever came in to see her — nobody, that was^ 
 except a lady upstairs on the drawing-room 
 floor, named Mrs. Randal, who was a lodger 
 of Mrs. Knibb's when Mrs. Ford first came 
 to Prince's Street. 
 
 The two women, according to the widow's 
 somewhat mixed and rambling narrative, had 
 become close friends; and Mrs. Eandal on 
 the following day would attend the coffin to
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 39 
 
 the grave. Indeed, if Adam had not come 
 up from the country, Mrs. Kandal would 
 have been the only mourner at the funeral. 
 
 A few months after her arrival in Prince's 
 Street, Mrs. Randal had been — had been — 
 well, taken seriously ill ; they thought she 
 would have died. But Mrs. Ford had nursed 
 her friend so devotedly through it all, that 
 she had, in fact, saved the life of Mrs. 
 E-andal. Naturally, after that, the two 
 became greater friends than ever; and so 
 when Mrs. Ford herself fell ill, and could 
 not get any better, Mrs. Eandal never left 
 her bedside either by night or by day. . It 
 was quite wonderful how the two clung to 
 each other. 
 
 At this part of her story the landlady's 
 statements had grown more confused and 
 contradictory than they had been hitherto. 
 Of the fact she was uneasily conscious her- 
 self ; but perceived with relief that it was 
 utterly lost upon the grief-stricken Adam. 
 
 And was there anything owing from Mrs. 
 Ford to Mrs. Knibb, the lock-keeper asked ; 
 and — and how about the funeral expenses? 
 No. Nothing was owing — not a penny, the 
 widow assured him ; Mrs. Ford having 
 always managed to " pay up regular." And 
 as for the funeral, Mrs. Randal — who was
 
 40 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 not at all badly off — had expressed her 
 intention of paying for everything herself. 
 
 " Ah, that I can't allow," said the lock- 
 keeper. *' I must see this Mrs. Randal 
 myself, and tell her so. Besides, I want 
 to thank her for her goodness to my poor 
 girl." 
 
 Here the widow looked scared, and said 
 hastily — 
 
 " No, no ! " Then she checked herself. 
 *' I mean," she said, with some embar- 
 rassment, ''that Mrs. Randal never sees 
 strangers. She — she is very careful of her 
 health, suffering badly at times from a weak 
 heart. But I will tell her what you say, if 
 you like ? " 
 
 " I shall see her, shan't I," said the lock- 
 keeper, quietly — '* to-morrow ? " 
 
 The frowzy landlady still looked embar- 
 rassed and doubtful, muttering something 
 about " she didn't know — she wasn't sure ; " 
 and the expression upon her features by 
 no means disappeared when the wail of a 
 peevish child broke forth in a room above 
 the kitchen. 
 
 «« Why, what's that ? " said Adam, looking 
 up at the ceiling. " Have you children in 
 the house then ? " 
 
 " It is Mrs. Randal's," replied the widow.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 41 
 
 rising hurriedly. ''She has two; and the 
 little boy is sickly. 'Sense me a minute; I 
 must go and see if she wants anything. I've 
 no servant." 
 
 Mrs. Knibb went off and shut the kitchen 
 door; and Adam, left to himself, stared 
 sadly into the grate, wherein for summer 
 ornament the widow had placed a jar of 
 water full of flowery branches of lilac and 
 laburnum. It was poor town stuff, Adam 
 was thinking insensibly, and not like his 
 lilac and laburnum which grew by the river- 
 side at the Lock. 
 
 That night he slept in the room wheue 
 the closed coffin was ; lying down in his 
 clothes upon the bed in which his own dear 
 child had breathed her last. 
 
 Mrs. Knibb was horrified at the idea, 
 or professed to be so, and offered to make 
 up a bed for him in an attic ; it was all she 
 could do for him, she was sorry to say. But, 
 at any rate, it would be better than sleeping 
 in the parlour with the corpse. Adam, how- 
 ever, was not to be dissuaded. 
 
 " The dead can't hurt a man,'' he said, in 
 his quiet, broken fashion. '' I shall stay 
 with my girl as long as I can — thank 
 you, ma'am, all the same." 
 
 He was very tired and slept heavily,
 
 42 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 notwithstanding the presence of that grue- 
 some thing supported upon tressels in the 
 centre of the room. In his deep sleep he 
 dreamed that Minna, in a long black gown, 
 with clasped hands and streaming eyes, came 
 and stood by the bedside. After gazing at 
 him for some moments in tearful silence, she 
 bent over the pillow and kissed him on the 
 forehead. 
 
 So vivid, in fact, was this dream of Adam's 
 that he awoke and started up with out- 
 stretched arms, crying — " Minna, Minna ! " 
 But his voice fell on the horrible stillness of 
 the room; and only the coffin upon the 
 tressels met his sight in the gray dawn. 
 And yet, in his heated fancy, he thought 
 that the door of the parlour — nay, he could 
 have sworn to it — had slowly closed, as if 
 cautiously shut by someone that had just 
 crept out. 
 
 It was Mrs. Knibb, he decided, if it was 
 anybody in the flesh — perhaps the landlady 
 had peeped round the door to ascertain if he 
 was comfortable in his strange quarters. 
 
 With a groan Adam sank back and slept 
 once more. 
 
 It was late — broad, bright daylight — when 
 he again awoke ; and Mrs. Knibb was really 
 in the room this time. She had come to tell
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 43 
 
 him that his breakfast was ready, and to in- 
 quire whether she should step out and buy 
 him a hat-band ? 
 
 As he had not one on his hat, Adam said 
 " Yes '* gratefully ; and then he rose and 
 dressed himself in the suit of black clothes 
 which he had brought with him to London in 
 his carpet bag, and which he had put on for 
 the first time when he had mourned for 
 Minna's mother — who slept her last sleep 
 in a far-off land, in a grave upon the banks 
 of the Missouri. These ancient black clothes 
 were very creased and rusty, but what cared 
 Adam Ford? 
 
 When the hearse and coach rolled up to 
 No. 30, Prince's Street, Adam was ready. 
 Mrs. Knibb wept audibly in the passage 
 when the undertaker's men came in; but 
 the lock-keeper himself was dry-eyed and 
 very quiet — his sorrow had spent itself, and 
 outwardly was dumb. 
 
 He was scarcely conscious of the fact, 
 perhaps ; but in reality he was thankful that 
 Minna was dead. Better so, he told himself 
 now — yes, better so ! For in a better world 
 she would be out of harm's way. 
 
 A tall figure, heavily robed in black, and 
 with a veil so thick in texture that it was im- 
 possible to see behind it the features of the
 
 44 LIKE LOST SBEEP. 
 
 wearer, glided ghost-like downstairs ; and, 
 without a word to anyone, passed out of the 
 street-door and got into the stuffy mourning- 
 coach. 
 
 "It is Mrs. Randal," whispered the land- 
 lady, sniffing more loudly than ever. 
 
 Adam followed her, with uncovered head, 
 and took the seat opposite to Mrs. Randal. 
 
 She shrank into her corner of the coach, 
 and appeared to be crying very bitterly. 
 
 The sad, short procession moved on down 
 the street, and dispersed the miscellaneous 
 crowd which a funeral, no matter how 
 humble a one, invariably serves to call to- 
 gether. Adam, leaning towards Mrs. Randal, 
 spoke : 
 
 "You have been uncommon kind to my 
 poor daughter, I hear, ma'am, and I thank 
 you from the bottom of my heart," he said. 
 
 The veiled black figure tried to answer, 
 but apparently could not. 
 
 " But now that I have found her," went 
 on the lock-keeper, earnestly, " I can't let 
 other folk be for paying what may be owing, 
 you know, ma'am, on her account ; and the 
 person of the house tells me — " 
 
 Here Mrs. Randal managed to make her 
 voice audible. It was so low and hard of con- 
 trol, however, that Adam could barely hear it.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 45 
 
 He wished that she would lift her veil ; 
 but he was too shy to ask her to do so. 
 
 "You need not — must not think of 
 troubling," she said. "Everything is paid 
 for — settled — there is nothing more to be 
 done." 
 
 " You are very good — I cannot thank you, 
 ma'am," murmured Adam. " Still — still, I 
 should like to put up a headstone or some- 
 thing, you see, over my poor girl, just to 
 mark the place — " 
 
 '* Leave that to me," Mrs. Randal hastened 
 to say. " I promise you that her grave shall 
 be always cared for. It shall never be neg- 
 lected — never ! " 
 
 " I can't find the words to thank you — I 
 really can't," said Adam, brokenly. " Your 
 beautiful kindness is too — " 
 
 *' Oh, do not thank me ! " interrupted Mrs. 
 Randal ; " you will pain me unendurably else. 
 Mrs. — Mrs. Ford was a dear friend to me — 
 dearer by far than I can tell you. The little 
 1 can do for her now I do out of deepest 
 gratitude. Please say no more ! " 
 
 She shrank back if possible still farther 
 into her corner, and gathered her gloomy robes 
 more closely around her. 
 
 " Heaven bless you and reward you, Mrs. 
 Randal," said Adam Ford, simply. " I am
 
 46 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 a poor man, and I am grateful to you beyond 
 words for all that you have done." 
 
 " Oh, hush — oh, hush, please ! " sobbed 
 Mrs. Eandal. 
 
 That unostentatious burying in the Bromp- 
 ton Cemetery was soon over. With neither 
 pomp nor show, nor crowd of sombre 
 mourners, Minna Ford was laid to rest. 
 After Life's fitful fever, within sound of the 
 throbbing of London's mighty heart, and far 
 from the river-meadows and the laughing 
 waters of the weir, far from the pleasant old 
 Lock, with its shady river-girt garden and 
 clustering roses, she slept well. Yes, Life's 
 fitful fever for the poor tired heart was ended, 
 and Minna Ford slept well ! 
 
 The hearse from the cemetery gates jogged 
 off at a brisk pace, as though glad once more 
 to be rid of its familiar burthen, and the 
 rusty coach followed jauntily in its wake. 
 
 Back again in Prince's Street, Adam re- 
 spectfully assisted Mrs. Randal to alight, and 
 the door being open, they entered the house 
 together. 
 
 "I'm going back to Coverley directly," 
 said the lock-keeper to her, as they stood 
 there alone with each other in the dusk of the 
 entrance-place ; *' but there — but there is one 
 question, ma'am, if I may be so bold, that I 
 should very much like to ask you before I go."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 47 
 
 Mrs. Eandal was silent. 
 
 " It is this," continued Adam, more firmly. 
 " You say that you knew my dear daughter 
 well — that you and she were close friends. 
 Did she — did she, may I ask, ma'am, ever 
 tell you aught about — about the man — the 
 name of him who — " 
 
 He stopped ; and his sad face grew fierce. 
 
 Mrs. Eandal tottered back a step, and leant 
 heavily against the passage wall ; the thick 
 veil which she had never once raised still 
 hiding her face from the light. 
 
 "I know what you would say," she inter- 
 rupted, in her low, strange voice. '* No ! 
 she never mentioned — would never mention 
 the name of the man who deserted her." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 Mrs. Randal's face, could Adam have seen 
 it, was white and agonised ; her very lips 
 were growing pale. 
 
 " She— she called herself Mrs. ' Ford,' 
 I'm told," said the lock-keeper, huskily. 
 *' But do you not think that — that — Heaven 
 knows why I venture to ask you, ma'am! — 
 do you not think that it might be likely there 
 was a marriage of some kind ? She may 
 have had reasons that we know nothing about 
 for going by her maiden name ? " 
 
 " She called herself Mrs. ' Ford,' and I 
 am very certain that she did have strong
 
 48 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 reasons for going by her maiden name," 
 replied Mrs. Randal, with emotion. " That 
 I know, if I know nothing else. She was 
 lawfully married — was a lawful wife. I — I 
 knew her well ; I am sure of it. Her husband 
 — who — whoever he was — treated her with 
 cruel cowardice. He took advantage of her 
 ignorance — being weary of her — and cast her 
 off ; in fact, disowned her. I — I can tell you 
 no more. Yet, take comfort ; whatever the 
 world may say or think, there is One above 
 who knows the truth ! " 
 
 " It does my heart good to hear you, 
 ma'am," said Adam, humbly. " I will try to 
 think like you. My poor Minna ! — my poor 
 Minna ! But oh ! if you could have told me 
 his name," cried the lock-keeper, involun- 
 tarily clenching his hands and throwing them 
 upward, " I would not rest — so hear me 
 Heaven ! — until I had found him out and 
 punished him for what he has done. An eye 
 for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a 
 life — that is just. If I could find the man I 
 would kill him ! " 
 
 " He will meet his punishment, never 
 fear ! " said Mrs. Randal, in the same pas- 
 sionate tone, pressing as she spoke her hands 
 upon her bosom. " I do not believe that 
 such deeds as his ever do go unpunished. It 
 is only a question of time.' 
 
 j>
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 49 
 
 *' If you could but tell me his name ! " 
 said Adam, hoarsely. 
 
 " If — if I could, I would do so," was her 
 diflScult answer. 
 
 The little sick boy upstairs was crying. 
 His sister was standing at the stair-head. 
 
 "Mamma, mamma," lisped the little thing, 
 " will you come up ? Mrs. Knibb wants you. 
 Roy is - " 
 
 " Yes, yes, my darhng," said the mother, 
 hurriedly, " I am coming." Then she added, 
 '* Stay where you are, Minna, or you will fall." 
 
 " Is your little girl, ma'am, called Minna?" 
 inquired Adam, wistfully. 
 
 '* Yes," replied Mrs. Randal, not without 
 confusion ; " she was christened after Mrs. 
 Ford." 
 
 She seized Adam's hands within both her 
 own, held them thus closely for seconds with 
 her head turned aside, then went quickly up 
 the stairs and upon the landing disappeared. 
 
 She entered a room where a young child — 
 a little boy — lay fretting upon a couch, and 
 there fell fainting by the couch-side. The 
 little girl called Minna, distressed at the 
 sight — though it was by no means for the 
 first time that she now beheld it — flung 
 herself down by her mother and tore off the 
 ugly black veil. 
 
 VOL. 1. E
 
 60 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " Poor mamma ! poor mamma ! " cried the 
 little creature piteously. 
 
 Adam meanwhile had gone into the parlour, 
 from which the coffin had been borne out, to 
 pack his carpet-bag. 
 
 " I wish," he lamented to himself, " that 
 I could have seen her without her veil. I 
 should like to have carried back with me, in 
 my memory, the face of the woman who was 
 so good to my poor girl ! "
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 It was the evening of the next day, the day 
 following that one on which the funeral had 
 taken place at 30, Prince's Street, Brompton, 
 and Mrs. Randal sat alone in her sitting- 
 room upstairs, which looked out upon the 
 street. 
 
 She was dressed quite simply in a neat- 
 fitting black gown, with white cuffs and 
 collar; and her heavy brown hair was 
 wound into a knot low at the back of her 
 head. 
 
 Her face was very handsome ; she was still 
 young ; but the lines about her eyes and her 
 mouth told of the trials of life which had 
 already fallen to her lot. Surely her share 
 of them must have been more than an 
 ordinary one ? 
 
 Mrs. Randal, in these days, rarely smiled. 
 
 She heard wheels, started, and looked out 
 of the window. A private brougham had 
 stopped at No. 30, and presently Mrs. Knibb, 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS 
 LIBRARY
 
 52 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 throwing open the sitting-room door, an- 
 nounced, '' Doctor Dexter ! " 
 
 He was a tall and powerful-looking man, 
 past the prime of life ; of somewhat rugged 
 appearance; of a somewhat stern cast of 
 feature ; yet with a pair of blue-gray eyes, 
 kindly enough, beneath their bushy pent- 
 house brows. His forehead was ample ; his 
 jaw was square ; there was something about 
 the whole man, his patients said sometimes, 
 which was wont to inspire one at first sight 
 with feelings of trust and confidence. 
 
 He was dressed for the evening ; and was 
 evidently due elsewhere than in Prince's 
 Street, Brompton. 
 
 They shook hands like two old friends. 
 
 " Sit down," she said, gently. " Do not 
 be in a hurry." 
 
 " But I am in a hurry. I am dining at 
 Fulham this evening," he answered. " How- 
 ever, I could not pass through this neigh- 
 bourhood, you know, without looking in to 
 see how you were feeling after the ordeal of 
 yesterday. I was coming here last night, bu1> 
 was urgently called in another direction." 
 
 "Yes," she said, sighing; "it was a hard 
 day — a very hard day." 
 
 " How did you bear it, my dear ? " he 
 inquired kindly, as a father might speak to 
 his daughter.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 53 
 
 " On the whole, pretty well. I was ill 
 after it was over," she said. And she told 
 him how she had been tried. 
 
 *' No wonder ! " was the Doctor's brief 
 comment. "This?" said he, tapping his 
 shirt-front on his left side. 
 
 "Yes," she answered, quietly; "nothing 
 more." 
 
 " Ah,'' he rejoined ; " nothing more ! You 
 must be careful; indeed you must. Oh, my 
 child, my child," he added abruptly, with 
 something like a frown knitting his shaggy 
 brows — " what are you going to do now ? 
 You will ruin your health utterly, will wreck 
 yourself bodily and mentally, with this 
 restless longing, this ceaseless plotting and 
 scheming, this unholy thirst for vengeance. 
 Forget it, child, forget it ! and shape your 
 life to a different course. How often must I 
 remind you that my home is waiting for 
 you ? Come to it, and find peace." 
 
 " I cannot," she answered, gloomily ; " you 
 know that I cannot, so long as there remains 
 a shadow of that horrible doubt ! I am con- 
 vinced of the truth myself. I want to prove 
 the truth to the world. Dear Doctor Dexter, 
 you remember our compact — we must abide 
 by it." 
 
 A light seemed to kindle upon the man's 
 earnest face.
 
 54 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " Kemember it ! " lie echoed. " Do I 
 not ? Why, remembering it, I am sometimes 
 almost tempted to pray that you may be 
 wrong ; that there may be no truth to prove 
 to the world beyond that it already believes." 
 
 " Then would my revenge be impossible,'' 
 said Mrs. Randal, wearily. 
 
 " So much the better for you," was the 
 Doctor's answer. '^If you would forget it 
 — if you would bury every shred of re- 
 collection of the past and accept the new 
 chance of happiness I am now holding out 
 to you — a good home, comfort, money, 
 luxury, position — you would be a different, 
 a happier woman, believe me; you would 
 make me the happiest of men. My step- 
 sister Helen — Mrs. De Lisle — the simplest 
 and sweetest-natured soul alive, is waiting 
 to know you ; she has heard from me your 
 history ; she is not much older than your- 
 self, and she is ready to abdicate in your 
 favour. She is devoted to me — regards me, 
 in fact, as a father; for I am the only 
 parent she ever has known — and con- 
 sequently for my sake she will do any- 
 thing for you. Say the word — forget the 
 past — and come ! " 
 
 " You are the noblest of men," she said, 
 with bowed head.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 55 
 
 " Nonsense ! Do what I want you to do, 
 and then — " 
 
 " Oh, I cannot, I dare not ! " she moaned ; 
 " it is ungenerous to tempt me. For my 
 children's sake I must find out the truth. 
 Moreover, I have gone too far on a perilous 
 road ; I have done too much ; I cannot now 
 turn back if I would." 
 
 " You must turn back — or stop," said he, 
 gravely, " if the truth prove contrary to 
 what you hold it to be." 
 
 She shook her head and smiled — a bitter 
 smile. She knew that she was right; that 
 right, if not might, was on her side. 
 
 " Well, the work of ferreting is still going 
 forward," said the stalwart physician, check- 
 ing a sigh. " I may bring you news at any 
 moment, my dear — so cheer up ! " 
 
 He drifted then into talking of the 
 children, and mentioned that he was about 
 to change the prescription for the little boy's 
 tonic. Shortly after he took his leave; driv- 
 ing off in his brougham to his dinner en- 
 gagement at Fulham. 
 
 At parting, Mrs. Randal had kissed the 
 Doctor's hand, assuring him again and again, 
 with tears choking her voice, that he was 
 the best and noblest of men. 
 
 " You must not tell me that so often — it
 
 56 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 isn't true," he had returned bluntly, with his 
 own kind, peculiar smile. " Besides, in the 
 first place, I shall become vain ; secondly, 
 my motives are purely selfish ones, as you 
 are aware. Don't lose sight of that." 
 
 A few days later, at about the same hour 
 of the evening, the brougham of Doctor 
 Dexter, of Cumberland Square, again stopped 
 at the door of 30, Prince's Street, Brompton. 
 
 It was a sultry evening, with a dull red 
 sunset, and coppery streaks athwart the 
 hazy blue of the sky. The gaieties of the 
 London season, though drawing to a close, 
 were still well to the fore. It was the 
 hour when Park and Row were deserted — 
 or rather were given up to the common 
 crowd — and all the gay, rich world was 
 flocking to dinner, ball, or theatre. The 
 distant roar of wheels was incessant; now 
 and then a hansom, the occupant or occu- 
 pants thereof in evening garb, would come 
 rattling even along Prince's Street on its 
 way to the Putney or the Fulham neighbour- 
 hood. 
 
 The windows of Mrs. Randal's sitting-room 
 were open to the air ; and she sat near them, 
 with a book on her knee. But she was not 
 reading. She looked pale and listless ; there 
 were dark shadows beneath her beautiful eyes.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 57 
 
 The children were playing on the floor at 
 Tier feet, with handsome picture books and 
 other expensive toys — principally the gifts of 
 Doctor Dexter. The little boy was better; 
 it was one of his good days; and consequently 
 lie was not so fretful and hard to amuse. 
 
 The instant the Doctor entered, the 
 children — Minna and Roy — scrambled up 
 and ran to him ; whilst Mrs. Eandal per- 
 ceived immediately that he had tidings of 
 moment to impart. 
 
 Her languor vanished. She rose excitedly 
 to her feet. She met her friend in the centre 
 of the room ; saying, before he could open 
 his lips — 
 
 " You have found something — I can read 
 it in your eyes. Speak! Pity my suspense!" 
 
 "You must be calm. I will tell you 
 nothing if you are not calm," he said. 
 
 He spoke very kindly, very gravely, and 
 put his arm round her to give her support. 
 Yet he knew that his dream-castles had 
 collapsed, were utterly destroyed, and that 
 the sweet hopes he had cherished for so many 
 months past had melted like ghosts into thin 
 air. He had brought with him, as it were, 
 the warrant for his own destruction ; and the 
 woman he loved so nobly and so well could 
 .never now be more to him than she was
 
 58 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 already. No ! never now. The dream was 
 over ! Until death they must remain friends 
 — friends and nothing more. 
 
 " I am calm," she panted. " See ! here is 
 my pulse — I do not tremble. Speak ! " 
 
 He got her wine and compelled her to 
 drink a glassful. Then without further 
 delay, perceiving that delay was perilous, he 
 pulled out a pocket-book and placed it upon 
 the table. 
 
 In the after days he confessed to her how 
 fiercely he had been assailed by the tempta- 
 tion to keep his discovery secret, or to swear 
 to her before his Maker that the contents 
 of the pocket-book were valueless. 
 
 He would have done anything, ventured 
 anything, no matter how hazardous, for her 
 sake ; but he loved her too well to play her 
 false. He loved her; he could not deceive 
 her ; albeit by deception he might ultimately, 
 if unlawfully, win her. 
 
 " Yes, my dear, it is found," he said, quietly. 
 '' A copy of it is in there." 
 
 " Let me see it ! " she cried, wildly. And 
 snatching up the Doctor's pocket-book, she, 
 with quivering hands, began to unfasten the 
 clasp. 
 
 "You will make mamma ill, Doctor Dexter, 
 said the little girl, in her serious, unchildlike 
 fashion, looking up with her soft dark eyes 
 
 »»
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 59 
 
 into tlie Doctor's rugged face, and plucking 
 at his coat as she spoke. 
 
 " Dear Httle soul ! " he murmured tenderly, 
 patting her pretty head. 
 
 Meanwhile the little boy, seeing that some- 
 thing was amiss, began to cry as fretfully as 
 was his wont. Minna pacified her brother in 
 her wee, unchildish way. 
 
 In trembling haste the mother extracted 
 the single document which the pocket-book 
 contained, and with hungry, fevered eyes she 
 read it quickly through from the first word to 
 the last. 
 
 " I thank Heaven ! — I thank Heaven ! " sh.e 
 
 was trying to say in her joy, but the old 
 
 pallor overspread her face, she gasped, she 
 
 closed her eyes. With a stifled shriek her 
 
 hands went upward to her heart, and the 
 
 next moment her head, like the head of a 
 
 dead woman, was resting upon the Doctor's 
 
 breast. 
 
 ***** 
 
 Late on one evening, towards the end of 
 that same month of June, it happened that 
 Sir Garth Grilroy sat alone in his library 
 at Woldney Moat. 
 
 He was looking idly through a pile of old 
 magazines, reviews, and newspapers, which 
 represented the accumulation of many weeks. 
 
 He had just returned from one of his desul-
 
 60 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 tory wanderings in foreign lands — he was 
 rarely at Woldney Moat — during whicli lie 
 had seldom taken the pains, even when at 
 hotels he did chance to come across them, to 
 glance at English newspapers. He was no 
 politician ; his interest in the politics of the 
 day was of the languidest description, he 
 always declared. 
 
 The reading-lamps were lit. The great 
 mullioned window was open. The broad 
 waters of the Dane beyond the park flowed 
 tranquilly along in the purple hush of the 
 summer gloaming. 
 
 The pollards by the river-edge whispered 
 in the breeze ; the stars were dimly strewing 
 themselves over heaven's vast land. 
 
 Sir Garth Gilroy took up a recent Times 
 and ran his eye leisurely down the first column 
 of the first sheet. 
 
 Presently he leapt from his chair, and stood 
 with the paper crushed in his hand, dumb- 
 founded for the moment at what he had just 
 read. 
 
 It was the notice of the death of Minna 
 Ford. 
 
 '' Ford. — June 9th, at 30, Prince's Street, 
 Brompton, Minnehaha, only daughter of 
 Adam Ford, of Borough Lock, near Coverley- 
 on-Dane, aged 26 years." 
 
 '' By Jove ! how fortunate," he muttered
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 61 
 
 at last. " This is rare luck indeed. I shall 
 hear, I suppose, from Yates and Dodgson now 
 the poor little lass is gone — wonder they 
 haven't written before. Bj-the-bye, the poor 
 child was not so very jpetite either, now I 
 come to think of it ; though I fancy, in spite 
 of her healthy looks and apparent strength, 
 she was always a trifle delicate," he mused 
 aloud. " I wonder whether she kept the affair 
 a secret till the last ? — and I wonder, too, 
 whether the old chap at the Lock up yonder 
 ever got an iukling of the real facts of the 
 case ? I must sound him ; must try to find 
 out to-morrow. By Jove ! it's a real mercy 
 — nothing better could have happened — 
 deucedly hard-up as I am just now ! " 
 
 On the next morning Sir Garth Gilroy, 
 as he expected he should, heard from his 
 solicitors in Holborn. 
 
 They wrote to apprise him that they had, 
 from a certain quarter, received information 
 to the effect that the four hundred a-year 
 would no longer be drawn as usual; for 
 the person who had hitherto withdrawn, in 
 quarterly instalments, the money from the 
 custody of Messrs. Yates and Dodgson, was 
 dead. 
 
 END OF PRELUDE.
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 »1 » 
 
 " A EOUGH night, Dan'l.' 
 
 " Ay, roughish, Mas'er Roger." 
 
 " Like old times, Dan'l," said Roger, 
 cheerily; "having the mills going all night 
 again — eh ? " 
 
 "Ay, like your grandfather's time come 
 agen," agreed Dan'l. " Bad luck, sir, as I 
 often says to Naomi, can't last for ever. 
 'Taint in the natur' o' things, Mas'er Roger." 
 
 " Well, let's hope not, old chap," said 
 Roger Harland. " Hope is as good as a 
 fortune sometimes." And he forthwith, 
 though he had changed his, miller's dress, 
 began to lend a vigorous hand in the work 
 of stacking up sacks of meal. 
 
 Master and man were in one of the upper 
 store-rooms of the mill; and the former, 
 having just finished supper, had come to 
 give an order which had been forgotten to 
 the men, and to have a last look round the 
 place before going indoors for the night.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 63 
 
 Dan'l Drake was foreman to the Harlands, 
 and had, in Roger's earliest days, carried the 
 youngster about the mill and to and fro over 
 the mill-tail ; to show him the great stones 
 crushing the wheat, or to let him listen to 
 the roar of the water as it turned the 
 ponderous wheel. 
 
 Naomi, Dan'Fs wife, with a girl — a relation 
 of her husband's — under her, was indoors 
 servant at the Little Mills. The couple had 
 been brought up in the mill-yard together, 
 and had served in their youth with Roger's 
 grandfather. 
 
 Roger's own father had now been dead for 
 some few years past, and the mother, a good 
 and faithful wife, had not been slow to follow 
 him. 
 
 Somehow or other things, during the latter 
 part of his lifetime, had not prospered with 
 Roger Harland's father. He speculated ill ; 
 lost money ; custom fell away. Things had 
 gone from bad to worse, until at last the 
 miller had fallen sick with worry, and liter- 
 ally died of his troubles. 
 
 Whilst Roger Harland senior was growing 
 poorer and poorer at the Little Mills, his 
 neighbour, Solomon Pringle, across the 
 water, had grown rich, had prospered ex- 
 ceedingly; in fact, had become a "big
 
 64 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 man " in the estimation of Himself and His 
 family. 
 
 There were some people who said that Mr. 
 Harland was too good-Datured, too indolent, 
 by far too easy-going in every respect ever 
 to get on and make much of a show in life. 
 He would have lent his last sovereign to a 
 friend in need, or his name, for the matter of 
 that, or his roof, oi" anything that was his to 
 lend. He forgave bad debts to struggling 
 bakers ; had even advanced small sums to 
 some of them at a time when he could ill 
 afford to be generous to anybody. It does 
 not now-a-days do to be too good-natured, 
 for gratitude is a very old-fashioned virtue 
 indeed — if it is not gone altogether out of 
 date. Soon, in all likelihood, it will cease to 
 appear in the dictionaries. 
 
 There were other people who opined that 
 the two mills were too near to each other for 
 both millers to get on and thrive ; that one 
 of them must always go to the wall so long 
 as the two mills stood where they did. 
 
 But those wise folk were wrong, as young 
 Roger Harland was gradually proving; for 
 the two buildings were situated in different 
 counties, the beautiful Dane, at this spot 
 well-nigh at its widest, flowing between 
 them, and thus dividing the two.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 65 
 
 When a man grows poor his friends fall 
 away. " Prosperity " — one knows alas ! too 
 well who knows the world — " is the very 
 bond of love." 
 
 There came a day when Eoger Harland, of 
 Little Borough Mills, was sorely pressed for 
 the loan of a few hundred pounds. His 
 account at his bankers', in Redtown, was 
 already over-drawn ; the bankers themselves 
 were inclined to be disagreeable. 
 
 Although the two families had never been 
 very intimate — the Pringles holding such a' 
 curiously high opinion of themselves and their 
 belongings — Roger Harland went across the 
 water and asked his neighbour Solomon 
 Pringle to lend him the money he wanted. 
 
 It would have been a trifling sum— a mere 
 " flea-bite," he said afterwards, with a wink, 
 to his better-half, as he called her — out of 
 Solomon's pocket. But Miller Pringle was 
 the wrong man in the matter. He refused. 
 
 This refusal caused much bitterness of 
 feeling between the two households ; and for 
 some time afterwards the respective members 
 thereof saw little of one another. Attending, 
 as they did, different churches, and going by 
 different roads into the town of Coverley, 
 unless they met on the river or upon the 
 long, straggling wooden bridge which led to 
 
 VOL. I. F
 
 66 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 tLe Lock, crossed the river, and connected 
 the Borough meadows with those of Woldney 
 Moat, a whole twelvemonth might easily 
 have elapsed without the Harlands and the 
 Pringles coming together. 
 
 Of course they saw one another in Coverley 
 occasionally, and the two millers met on 
 common ground at the markets and else- 
 where. But, in a social sense, there was 
 little or no intercourse, in these days, 
 between them. And the coldness lasted 
 until Roger Harland died. 
 
 The money somehow was procured, and 
 immediate ruin stayed ; but Eoger Harland's 
 heart was breaking, and he was not sorry to 
 give up the struggle of life. 
 
 When Eoger junior, at the age of three- 
 and-twenty, found himself master at the 
 Little Mills, he determined — if it were in a 
 man's power to make them — that things 
 should mend on their side of the water. 
 
 He stuck to business ; worked early and 
 late; worked as hard, in fact, as any of his 
 own men — taking his turn at the night- work 
 too, and never missing a market where busi- 
 ness was to be done. 
 
 Thereward of real and conscientious labo ur 
 was slow, perhaps, in coming, but sure ; and 
 things at length did actually begin to brighten 
 for the master of the Little Mills.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 67 
 
 Unhappily, just as the clouds were clearing, 
 Mrs. Harland fell ill and died ; and her loss 
 to young Roger was a sad blow — for he 
 loved his mother dearly. 
 
 • But he rallied, and worked on ; worked 
 indeed harder than ever. There were still 
 debts of his father's to be paid off, and his 
 sister Kate was wholly dependent upon his 
 energies. 
 
 At last however the day came round when 
 Roger Harland stood up amongst his fellows 
 a free man. He held his head high then ; 
 for he felt proud, and honourably so, of 
 what he had achieved. 
 
 His father's name was cleared of all re- 
 proach, and brighter days were assured for 
 their home at the Little Mills. 
 
 Ah^ if only the dear mother had lived to 
 see it ! 
 
 With the dawn of easier circumstances for 
 the house across the water, the Pringles — 
 although at this time they drove in a carriage 
 and pair, with coachman and footman in 
 dazzling livery — saw fit to thaw consider- 
 ably towards their neighbours the Harlands ; 
 indeed, as time went on, they condescended 
 to call pretty frequently at Little Borough 
 Mills. 
 
 The girls, Julia and Hester — still com- 
 monly called Jill and Hetty — would row
 
 68 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 themselves across the river, attired in smart 
 boating-costumes of the latest fashion, to 
 know whether Kate would come over for 
 tennis and dinner, or drive with them in the 
 carriage — the "kerridge," as papa Pringle 
 would call it, to the great disgust of his 
 daughters whom he had sent to a Paris 
 " finishing " school — on a shopping expedi- 
 tion into Coverley. 
 
 Sometimes, if Kate Harland had really 
 nothing better to do, or if Roger was at 
 market and she was at home by herself, she 
 would go with Jill and Hetty ; for they 
 amused her when they did not bore her. If 
 Roger was at home and wanted her, or if 
 she was busy in the house, she would say 
 perhaps in her bright frank fashion — 
 
 " Thanks ; you are very good, both of you ;. 
 but I cannot come to-day. I have a pile of 
 Roger's shirts to button and innumerable 
 other little jobs to attend to. As for dinner, 
 I couldn't eat a mouthful, because, you see,, 
 we have dined already." 
 
 Albeit Roger and Kate were perfectly 
 willing to forgive and forget, and to let 
 bygones be bygones, they never hesitated, all 
 the same, to let the Pringles perceive that 
 their friendship was estimated at exactly its- 
 right value.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 69 
 
 If they chose to come across, the two girls 
 and their fat, florid mamma, to chat for an 
 hour, to suggest going home with them to 
 dinner — the Pringles dined late, at seven 
 o'clock, and a man-servant waited at table — 
 and perhaps to hint mysteriously at the 
 grand acquaintances they were making here 
 and there in the neighbourhood, they were 
 at perfect liberty to do so ; and Kate, and 
 Eoger would be civil to them, and laugh at 
 them good-naturedly after they were gone. 
 If they did not want to come, having other 
 and finer friends to call upon, why, they were 
 at perfect liberty to stop away. 
 
 Kate and Roger did not value the Pringles' 
 so-called friendship one brass farthing ; and 
 occasionally, just to do them good, said 
 Roger, they allowed them to see what they 
 thought of them. 
 
 When Roger had first stepped into his 
 father's shoes, old Pringle had taken upon 
 himself to lecture the young man, to give 
 him what he considered a bit of wholesome 
 advice from the pinnacle of his own success- 
 ful experience. But the master of Borough 
 Mills unexpectedly met his match in the 
 young master of the Little Mills, and he 
 did not repeat a discomfiting experiment. 
 He went back to his grand new house, which
 
 70 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 every year he contrived to make grander and 
 newer-looking, feeling decidedly *' sat upon " 
 — fully comprehending that Roger Harland 
 was about the last man in the world who 
 would suffer himself to be patronised by 
 Solomon Pringle, or Solomon anybody else 
 if it came to that. 
 
 Roger, at this time, was seven-and-twenty, 
 tall, tanned, strong, and well set-up. If he 
 was not a remarkably handsome man, he was 
 at any rate one of the finest-grown young fel- 
 lows to be found in his native county. He did 
 his duty, and was not ashamed of his trade ; 
 he was moderately well educated, and fond 
 enough of reading when he could make the 
 time for it. He lived temperately and cleanly, 
 and hoped — though he was as yet quite heart- 
 whole — to be sufficiently well off to marry at 
 no very distant day; when his children, 
 should he have any, he resolved, should be 
 brought up as kindly and as carefully as he 
 and Kate themselves had been brought up — 
 that is, to fear God, but no man ; to con- 
 sider home as the first and best place in the 
 universe; and, as good subjects should, to 
 honour their Queen and their country. 
 
 Such was Roger Harland with his simple 
 creed. 
 
 Kate, who had all her wits about her, had
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 71 
 
 soon perceived in whicli direction at tlie 
 Little Mills lay the attraction for the Pringle 
 girls. Roger was so strong and so manly- 
 looking, it was no wonder, thought Kate, 
 that they should be fond of rowing across 
 the river in the hope of seeing and having a 
 chat with her brother. They had the repu- 
 tation in Coverley for running after all the 
 good-looking and eligible young men they 
 could get hold of, and even after those who 
 were neither eligible nor good-looking into 
 the bargain. 
 
 Julia Pringle was " getting on." She was 
 about Roger's age; but Hetty, the youngest 
 of the three, was by a few months Kate Har- 
 land's junior. Louisa, the middle one, had 
 married well soon after her return from the 
 Paris school, and was now abroad again with 
 her husband, on account of her delicate health. 
 Their two joung children meanwhile — little 
 daughters — were being taken care of by their 
 aunts and grandparents at Borough Mills. 
 
 The wind on that murky November night 
 rushed and howled around the Little Mills, 
 the place standing upon a less sheltered spot 
 than that upon which was built its wealthier 
 neighbour over the water, and did its best 
 with its clamour to drown the humming and 
 the jarring going on within the building.
 
 72 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 The tallow lights guttered in the draught ; 
 the river outside flowed blackly onward, 
 lapping and gurgling in the darkness about 
 the slimy timber of the bridge. When the 
 wind was lulled for a moment the ever- 
 tumbling splash of the mill-tail plainly made 
 itself heard. E-oger Harland, pausing in his 
 labour, looked out from a little window high 
 up in the wooden walls — and from which he 
 could have dropped sheer down into the un- 
 ruffled ebon depths of the silent yet swift- 
 gliding water of the mill-pond — and found 
 that the wind blew rain. 
 
 " Rain, Mas'er Eoger ? " inquired the 
 foreman presently. 
 
 " Yes," replied the young man, still lean- 
 ing out. " I quite expect that we are in for 
 another wet winter, Dan'l, with floods again 
 — such as we had last year." 
 
 " Oh, darn the floods ! " said Dan'l Drake, 
 always ready for a gossip. " There's no 
 getting about nohow hereabout with the 
 water up to your middle in the lane and the 
 meadows out o' sight altogether. It was 
 bad enough last year, going up to Coverley 
 in boats in the thick o' the winter o' Satur- 
 day nights. I've lived here boy and man for 
 — well, you knows for how long, Mas'er 
 Eoger, as well as anybody do, and I never
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 73 
 
 remember 'em wuss 'an 'era was last year. 
 The water touclied the Eedtown road on our 
 side a'most, and on t'other side the Margrave 
 road was like the river hisself." 
 
 Roger made no reply ; perhaps did not 
 hear Dan'l's wordy observation. Once set 
 talking, Dan'l was apt to wax tedious. 
 
 The young master was whistling softly to 
 himself and listening to something out in the 
 night at the same time. 
 
 He fancied that he had caught the sound 
 of wheels coming along the Redtown road. 
 He stopped whistling and listened intently. 
 Surely those wheels now were rattling down 
 the lane which led direct to the Little Mills ? 
 
 " Who can it be at this time o' night ? " 
 wondered Harland — " if they are coming 
 here." His watch was indoors ; he had 
 forgotten to wind it up. " Dan'l, what's the 
 time ? " he called out over his shoulder. 
 
 The foreman clutched his white breeches 
 with one hand, and with the other dived 
 into some out-of-the-way corner of them, 
 dragging out therefrom, by a black ribbon, 
 a silver watch of the modest size of a cricket- 
 ball. 
 
 "It's nigh upon half -past nine, Mas'er 
 Roger," said he. 
 
 '' Thanks," said Roger.
 
 74 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 The wheels along the lane were certainly 
 coming nearer. E^oger decided that it must 
 be the doctor's gig. For Mrs. Wickie, the wife 
 of one of his men, who, on account of her 
 ever-increasing family, occupied the largest 
 cottage in the mill-yard, was daily expecting 
 to be ill. Yes, doubtless Mrs. Wickie had 
 sent off in a hurry for Mr. Headstone Payne. 
 
 " Is Mrs. "Wickie ill yet, Dan'l, do you 
 know ? " inquired Roger, quite simply. "I 
 thought I heard Mr. Payne's gig coming 
 down the lane." 
 
 ''No-o," replied Dan'l, dubiously — "I 
 don't think she is, sir. She was all right, I 
 know, at tea-time, for I see her standing at 
 the door a-talking wi' Adam Ford." 
 
 " Ah," said Roger, absently. 
 
 " And Adam tells me, Mas'er Eoger, 
 continued Dan'l, " that Sir Garth is expected 
 at Woldney Moat for Christmas. They say 
 he's short o' money agen, and is going to 
 live quiet here for a bit. Lor', sir, there 
 can't be nothing to do at Woldney now-a- 
 days; and that young gent there — Mr. 
 Chance — must have an easy time of it ! " 
 
 " Shouldn't wonder," said Roger. 
 
 " The place is like a howlin' wilderness, 
 as the say in' is," said Dan'l Drake. '' I 
 crossed the park only t'other day. It's a 
 
 >>
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 75 
 
 thousand pities, sir, that *tis, a fine old pro- 
 perty like that all a-going to the dooce — " 
 
 " If it hasn't gone already," muttered 
 Harland. 
 
 " Jest for the want of the money handy to 
 keep it up like ! " said Dan'l. " They do say 
 as Sir Garth owes a mint o' coin to the big 
 man across the water," — nodding with a leer 
 in the direction of Borough Mills. " Dunno 
 how true it is." 
 
 " Who told you that ? " asked Roger, 
 carelessly. 
 
 " Adam Ford, sir." 
 
 " Ah, it won't do to listen to all that 
 Adam may talk about, you see, Dan'l. He 
 doesn't always know what he's saying, I 
 fancy — he gets lost occasionally and can't 
 remember things properly. His troubles, 
 my father used to say, made an old man of 
 him before his time," answered Roger; '* and 
 my father was about right." 
 
 ** Ay, he's breaking fast, is poor old Adam 
 — he can't bide at the Lock much longer, 
 Mas'er Roger, I should say; he's got too 
 slow, and people haven't patience with his 
 doddery ways," said Dan'l, with the air of a 
 man who has still the best of his own years 
 ahead of him. " Lor' ! how well do I re- 
 member that gal of his with the heathenish
 
 76 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Bame ; and wbat a beauty she was, too, 
 years ago, when she lived with the old man 
 at the Lock ! It was seventeen years ago last 
 summer that she died — how time slips away 
 to be sure ! Yes — -jest seventeen years ago 
 it is since old Adam went up to London 
 town to see the last o' her, poor soul. Ah ! 
 she was a bonny one to look at, Mas'er 
 Eoger, she was, and no mistake ! " 
 
 " So IVe heard,'* said Roger. " I can't 
 say I recollect her; though I haven't for- 
 gotten Adam's going to London." 
 
 '* 0' course not, sir. But as to what I 
 was saying, sir, about Sir Garth Grilroy and 
 Mr. Pringle — why, I heard a good deal o' 
 talk about it," said the foreman, mysteri- 
 ously, " only t'other day in Coverley." 
 
 '* We all know, Dan'l, what a hot-bed of 
 lies and scandal Coverley is," laughed Har- 
 land. 
 
 As he spoke, a fresh blast of mingled wind 
 and rain swept over the meadows and the 
 turbulent river and shook the Little Mills to 
 their very base. 
 
 For some moments nothing then, in that 
 upper store-room, could be heard save the 
 roar of the wind. Roger drew in his head 
 and broad shoulders, closed the dusty little 
 casement, and snuffed the tallow lights.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 77 
 
 "Right you are there, sir," called out 
 Dan'l, heartily, from the bottom of a bin as 
 large as a small room, in which he was now 
 engaged in folding sacks. " Why, o' Satur- 
 day nights, at ' The Red-Hot Poker,' you 
 can hear anything you've a mind to, jest 
 for the trouble o' keeping your ears open, 
 
 sir — " 
 
 '' Truth, or the other thing, I suppose P '* 
 said the master, drily. 
 
 " That is as maybe, o' course, Mas'er 
 Roger," replied the man — "jest as it 
 happens. Why, sir, when Miss Topps goes 
 into Coverley, Naomi says, she scrapes 
 together every tit-bit and mossel o' tattle 
 she can to take back with her to the Miss 
 Pringles. They likes it. They don't care 
 how long she's gone, pervided she brings 
 'em home plenty o' talk — the spicier the 
 better, J^aomi says — and it ain't hard to do, 
 for the place is always full of it." 
 
 ** I daresay," laughed Harland, yawning. 
 
 " I went over this morning," continued 
 the garrulous Dan'l, " with a message from 
 Miss Kate to Miss Jooly, and I see that there 
 Miss Topps at the kitchen-door. She says, 
 sir, as they've got a governess, or summat o' 
 the sort, coming there to look after the little 
 gals, 'cause Miss Jooly and Miss Hetty have
 
 78" LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 had about enough of them, and wants to 
 shunt 'em on to somebody else — " 
 
 " Ah, yes," Eoger cut in, with another 
 yawn, " I did hear something of the kind 
 some time ago, I believe." He and Kate 
 had seen little of the Pringle girls lately, 
 owing to the blusterous weather which had 
 prevailed. '' Mind and send in for your beer, 
 Dan'l ; it's getting late." 
 
 " Thenky, Mas'er Roger. Good-night," 
 returned Dan'l. 
 
 Unmistakably now there was a sound of 
 wheels ; wheels that were crushing the wet 
 stones outside. 
 
 A voice called up from a lower ladder — 
 " Is the master aloft, there ? If so, he's 
 wanted." 
 
 " All right," Harland shouted down 
 through the opening in the floor. 
 " Coming ! " 
 
 With the ease and dexterity which spring 
 from long habit, he disappeared rapidly down 
 the steep ladders that led to the roomier 
 caverns at the basement of the mill. 
 
 " What the dickens can they want, who- 
 ever they are, at this hour ? " muttered the 
 young man. " It can't be Mrs. Wickie, 
 then, after all ! " 
 
 So saying, and taking a lantern from one
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 79 
 
 of his men whom lie met ascending to the 
 store-room he had just left, he went out alone 
 into the mill-yard. 
 
 How little on that night guessed Eoger 
 Harland that the story of his life was about 
 to begin !
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 '' That is not you, Mr. Payne, is it ? " called 
 out Roger, in order to be sure upon the 
 point. 
 
 The night being so wild, the dim lamps on 
 either side of the vehicle gave him but scanty 
 aid to distinguish the pattern of its make. 
 ISTeither could he discern the form of its 
 driver. 
 
 So, holding the lantern above his head, 
 Harland went towards the trap, which had 
 halted a few yards from the mill door, and he 
 then perceived that it was one of the ram- 
 shackle old flies and broken-kneed quadrupeds 
 from " The Gig Hotel " in Coverley. 
 
 " She tol' me to bring her to Lit'le Borough 
 Mills, an' I ha' brought her, ain't I, to Lit'le 
 Borough Mills ? " said a thick voice from the 
 box-seat — a voice which Roger instantly 
 recognised ; *' an' Mr. Roger Harland he live 
 at the Lit'le Mills, don't he ? Alius thought 
 so, 'm sure."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 81 
 
 " Oh, it's you, is it, Bocky Oakum — drunk 
 as usual ? " cried Harland, sharply. " What 
 mischief have you been up to to-night ? " 
 
 " She shaid Lit'le Borough Mills — take 'm 
 oath she shaid Lit'le Borough Mills," the 
 dissipated Bocky, who was a well-known 
 character at " The Gig " in Coverley, was 
 beginning again ; '' an' I ha' brought her 
 to—" 
 
 Hereupon a lady put her head out of the 
 fly-window, and said, in a clear, sweet-toned 
 voice, which, nevertheless, at that moment 
 had the ring of just indignation in it : 
 
 " There is evidently some mistake, and* the 
 man is intoxicated. Harland certainly was 
 not the name I told him ; it was Pringle — 
 and the people live at Borough Mills. Where 
 am I ? To what place has he brought me ? " 
 she added, with evident anxiety. " Ah, it 
 must be — I remember — " 
 
 She checked herself abruptly. 
 
 Roger had presented himself bare-headed 
 at the window of the fly, and hastened to 
 explain to the strange lady, who, he could 
 just make out, was young and warmly 
 cloaked and hooded, that there was indeed a 
 grave mistake, owing to the tipsy stupidity 
 of the wretched Bocky ; but that the blunder 
 could be rectified in a very short time, the 
 
 VOL. I. G
 
 82 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Pringles' house being situated only just 
 across the river. 
 
 " I can reach it, then, I suppose, by means 
 of the bridge, cannot I ? " asked the stranger, 
 quickly. 
 
 And Roger replied — 
 
 " Yes ; over the bridge and round by the 
 Lock-garden, which adjoins the Pringles' 
 shrubberies. There is no other way at this 
 time of year. If it were summer-time you 
 might cross by water." 
 
 By the flickering light of the lantern he 
 was regarding the pale hooded face within 
 the carriage with so much interest and 
 curiosity that he failed to notice a singular 
 circumstance : that the girl — she looked about 
 one or two-and-twenty — had mentioned their 
 picturesque old wooden bridge quite of her 
 own accord; there had been no suggestion 
 about a bridge from Roger. This, surely, in 
 an absolute stranger to the neighbourhood, 
 was odd, to say the least of it. 
 
 However, the fact was lost on Roger, And 
 perhaps she was no stranger after all. Speak- 
 ing, he had opened the fly door ; then held 
 out his hand to assist the lady to alight. 
 
 " You must allow me to be your guide,'* 
 said he ; " and I will see that your luggage 
 follows us directly."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 83 
 
 The slight, hooded figure stepped forth 
 into the darkness, purse in hand to pay her 
 fare. She murmured as her arm just touched 
 Harland's — 
 
 ''It is very good of you." 
 
 *' Pray do not say so," replied the young 
 man eagerly, with a vague wonder, perhaps, 
 at his own gallantry. Roger Harland was by 
 no means what is termed a " ladies' man." 
 In the society of women with whom he was 
 intimately acquainted — the Pringle girls, for 
 instance — he was natural and easy enough. 
 In the company of strangers of the gentler 
 sex, the strong young fellow was inclined to 
 wax shy. 
 
 On that tempestuous November night, 
 however, when Bocky Oakum drove his 
 feeble old fly into the yard of the Little Mills 
 instead of up to the smart stuccoed entrance- 
 gates of Borough Mills proper, Roger some- 
 what forgot to be awkward in his desire to 
 be of service to his unexpected visitor. 
 
 " But stay a moment," he continued. " Do 
 let me beg you to come into our house ; it is 
 close by. My sister is indoors, and will be 
 only too pleased to get you any refreshment 
 jou might like. Tea, you know, or any- 
 thing. I can answer for her. You are both 
 cold and tired, perhaps, and : "
 
 84 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " Thank you very much," she interrupted 
 quietly, *' but I cannot do as you suggest. I 
 must hasten," with a glance across the 
 moaning river to where the lighted windows 
 of Borough Mills shone out upon the windy 
 gloom, '' at once to my destination." 
 
 So Harland called out lustily : 
 
 " Bocky, just rouse yourself — look sharp 
 and haul down those trunks, will you ?" 
 
 Bocky, with a horse-cloth tucked about his 
 legs, had fallen asleep upon the box. He 
 started violently, and almost rolled off. 
 
 " Comin', sir, comin' 1" he shouted, imagin- 
 ing for a second or two that he was in the 
 stable-yard at ** The Gig," and that some- 
 body in the hotel wanted him. 
 
 Eoger meanwhile gave instructions to one 
 of his men with regard to the bringing over 
 of the luggage, telling him first of all to run 
 to the house and explain to Miss Kate what 
 had happened, and whither he, her brother, 
 was gone. And then he said : 
 
 " As for you, Bocky, be off with you now 
 immediately. Do you hear ? " 
 
 The incorrigible Bocky mumbled some- 
 thing in reply — an inarticulate speech in 
 which the words " beer," " Mr. Harland's 
 health," and " a nasty night," were audibly 
 enough insinuated. But it met with no 
 friendly response from Roger.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 85 
 
 " Not a drop more of anytliing do you get 
 here," said he. " You have had more than's 
 good for you already at ' The Poker.' " 
 
 '' Ain't been at ' The Poker ' —been at ' The 
 Wild 'Oss ' for a change," hiccuped Bocky, 
 sullenly. 
 
 " No matter," was Eoger's stern rejoinder; 
 " be off with you at once, you rascal ! The 
 next time I see you in Coverley I hope you'll 
 be sober — if not for your own sake, at least for 
 your poor old grandmother's. Good-night." 
 
 Bocky Oakum made use of some very bad, 
 but happily unintelligible language, seized his 
 whip to lash viciously at his poor lean beast, 
 and finally rattled out of the mill-yard, swear- 
 ing all the way on his homeward journey to 
 Coverley. 
 
 Not without shyness now Harland offered 
 his arm to the quiet figure at his side. She 
 took it without demur; indeed, accepted it 
 with the self-possessed mien which was 
 evidently natural to her. Also, without 
 hesitation, she handed over to Roger's care 
 her travelling-bag and umbrella. It was 
 folly to think of putting up the latter ; the 
 wind would have turned it inside out, made 
 it it's own. and driven it like a leaf through 
 the wild air. 
 
 " You are not afraid of the river on such a 
 night ? " said Harland.
 
 86 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " Not in the least," she replied. 
 
 As they made their difficult way along the 
 rough planks of the bridge — which jarred and 
 trembled beneath their steps, and through 
 which, by the lantern's yellow light, they 
 could see the troubled water, with its masses 
 of eddying foam, heaving and rolling about 
 the slimy wooden posts — Roger inquired of 
 his companion how it had happened that the 
 Pringles had not sent their carriage to meet 
 her ? She had come on a visit to Borough 
 Mills, the young man vaguely supposed. 
 
 In reply she explained to him that she had 
 missed the train at Twycross — between which 
 place and Coverley- on-Dane a branch from 
 the main line of late years had been opened — 
 and in consequence had been compelled to 
 wait nearly a couple of hours at that dreary 
 little wayside station. When the last train 
 of all ran down to Coverley, she found 
 nobody there to meet her. As it had been 
 arranged that she should arrive at Coverley 
 at seven o'clock, and had failed to appear, 
 the Pringles, the girl imagined, had con- 
 cluded that she would not come until the 
 following day. 
 
 " Too bad of them ! " commented Har- 
 land, frowning. " They might have met the 
 last train.''
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 87 
 
 " And so saved me from the tender mercies 
 of your friend — Bocky Oakum ? That is his 
 queer name, is it not?" she said, demurely. 
 And the horror of the future was so near, so 
 close upon her, and she knew it not ! 
 
 *' Do — do you know," said the young man, 
 with some embarrassment, " that I am more 
 than half inclined to forgive Mr. Bocky his 
 blunder of to-night ? If he had been sober 
 — which he seldom is — and had driven you 
 by way of the Margrave road instead of 
 coming our Redtown way, I should have been 
 deprived, you know, of — of — the pleasure 
 of—" 
 
 Not by any means were compliments Roger 
 Harland's strong point. He floundered 
 hopelessly, stopped, and blushed to the very 
 roots of his hair. Fortunately there was 
 neither moon nor star ; the only light near 
 them was that about their feet, which was 
 shed from the lantern he carried. 
 
 After a few seconds of silence the strange 
 girl said in her peculiarly sweet and clear 
 voice — and Harland was wonderinof now 
 whether it was pride or scorn, or both, which 
 he could detect in its refined inflection — 
 
 " I should tell you at once that I am only 
 the governess they are expecting. Had I 
 been a friend, they would have waited for
 
 
 88 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 me in all probability — I do not know ; I do 
 not think I care. The ways of these people 
 are wholly unknown to me." 
 
 Ah ! " exclaimed Roger, indignantly ; 
 that is like them." Then more quietly: 
 *' Yes, we did hear — my sister and I — a little 
 while ago, that a lady was coming to 
 Borough Mills as governess to the children — 
 Mr. Pringle's grand-children. We had no 
 idea, though, that the lady was expected so 
 soon," said Roger, simply. '' Miss — Miss — I 
 do not know your name, you see," stam- 
 mered he. 
 
 Another pause. Then — 
 
 *' I am Miss Dexter," she said, with un- 
 mistakable pride. 
 
 " Miss Dexter," continued Eoger, linger- 
 ing on the name as if it were very pleasant 
 to utter, and, even in that early hour of their 
 acquaintance, unconsciously longing to know 
 what the name or names might be that went 
 before it, "Miss Dexter, you will not, I'm 
 afraid, thank me for enlightening you — but — 
 but I should not be surprised if you do not 
 like the Pringles." 
 
 "Nor I either," she replied, calmly. 
 
 " Of course you may find that they 
 improve upon examination," said Roger, 
 dubiously.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 89 
 
 " I assure you that it does not signify in 
 the least degree to me, Mr. Harland, what 
 these people are like," said Miss Dexter, 
 quickly. " They cannot interfere with me 
 or with the work that I have to do." 
 
 It was a curious answer; but it did not 
 strike Roger as being so — perhaps at the 
 time he dimly thought that she alluded to 
 her work of tuition. Afterwards, however, 
 he remembered her words and pondered 
 them. 
 
 They were approaching the Lock. 
 
 E;Oger became suddenly aware that the 
 small hand resting upon his coat-sleeve had 
 grown nervous — in fact, was trembling per- 
 ceptibly. A solitary light shone in an upper 
 casement of the cottage — the window of 
 Adam Ford's room, wherein, it might be, the 
 weary and aged lock-keeper was tossing 
 sleepless upon his bed or dreaming of his 
 dead daughter whom he had lost years ago. 
 
 " You find the wind from the river chilly, 
 I fear — it comes sweeping up just here over 
 the Woldney meadows yonder," suggested 
 Roger, seized with a wild desire to then and 
 there pull off his coat, to make an additional 
 wrap for the Pringles' governess. 
 
 " No, no ! Is this — is this the Lock ? " 
 asked Miss Dexter, abruptly.
 
 90 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Harland said that it was ; remarking care- 
 lessly, witli an upward glance at the lighted 
 lattice : 
 
 " The poor old fellow has already gone to 
 bed, I suppose. Let us hope, for his sake, 
 that no barge or anything will be coming 
 through to-night." 
 
 *' Of — of whom are you speaking ? " she 
 said. 
 
 " Of Adam Ford, the lock-keeper," replied 
 Eoger. 
 
 " You mean that he would have to get up 
 and let it through the Lock, if a boat were to 
 come along?" Miss Dexter said, shuddering 
 as she put the question. 
 
 " Yes. He would have to come down, 
 certainly, and open the gates," answered 
 Eoger, cheerily. "No wonder you shiver at 
 the idea. Miss Dexter — it is not a pleasant 
 one, especially on a winter night ! Adam 
 now-a-days is not young and tough enough 
 for the work ; he's past it really ; but he 
 won't be persuaded to give it up — the place 
 has been his home for so many years." 
 
 " Poor, poor old man," said the girl, slowly 
 and tremulously, 
 
 '' You've a very gentle heart," ventured 
 Roger, shyly. 
 
 " I do not know — perhaps. It can be as 
 hard as granite notwithstanding."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 91 
 
 In the shadow of her hood her eyes 
 flashed; her teeth were set. Beneath her 
 bodice her bosom throbbed to aching. 
 
 " I cannot believe it," returned Roger, 
 stoutly, unconscious of her pain and 
 emotion. 
 
 She made no rejoinder to his disbelief; 
 but, halting, said hurriedly — 
 
 ''And yonder, you say, Mr. Harland, is 
 Woldney Moat ? " 
 
 Roger had said nothing of the kind. He 
 had mentioned the Woldney meadows; but 
 not Woldney Moat. But, unaware of this 
 fact, he made answer — mechanically hoisting 
 his lantern as if the poor light it gave could 
 fling its beams athwart the dark meadows 
 and show up the ancient ruin amidst its low- 
 lying pastures, where dwelt, when he visited 
 the neighbourhood. Sir Garth Gilroy, with 
 grim care in his breast and wan ghosts about 
 his hearth — " Yes, yonder is Woldney Moat. 
 You must go there one day with my sister, 
 and explore the old place — " 
 
 " Yes, I intend to do so,'* said the girl, 
 hurrying onward. 
 
 '' A great friend of ours — of Kate's and of 
 mine — lives at the Moat," Harland was con- 
 tinuing. " We could go over the old house 
 any day you pleased. Miss Dexter. By-the- 
 bye, I hope you will like my sister Kate, and
 
 92 JilKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 that you and she will become friends in time. 
 If you are not happy and comfortable with 
 the Pringles, you must make our house 
 your — " 
 
 Roger was talking to space. 
 
 His lantern dropped with a jerk when he 
 found himself alone. The sudden movement 
 of his arm — either that or a gust of wind — 
 extinguished the bit of candle within the horn 
 cage. 
 
 Cursing the mishap, he ran forward, sick 
 with apprehension. " Miss Dexter — Miss 
 Dexter ! " he shouted, " for Heaven's sake, 
 take care what you're about ! Don't go 
 another step until I am with you ! You 
 don't know the ground — " 
 
 He was too late. 
 
 The shrill cry of a woman's voice rang out 
 upon the blusterous night. The wind, as it 
 swept by the river, caught up the shriek and 
 carried it afar over the woods and meadows. 
 " Help — help me — I am sinking ! " 
 
 The strange governess, having quitted 
 Roger's side, had walked sheer into the 
 black, cold abyss of the Lock.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The dwelling-house appertaining to Little 
 Borough Mills was old-fashioned, solid and 
 comfortable. 
 
 On either side of the entrance-hall was a 
 good-sized sitting-room, with a third and 
 smaller parlour opening out of the dining- 
 room from an alcove by the fireplace. 
 
 This small parlour was Eoger Harland's 
 own den, " snuggery " and counting-house 
 together. It was lighted by one long narrow 
 window which looked towards his mill, and 
 from which, on Saturday evenings, Harland 
 paid the men who worked for him. 
 
 This inner room, in its turn, opened on a 
 lobby which communicated with the kitchen 
 offices. 
 
 In front of the house lay a neat flower- 
 garden, which in the summer-time was sweet 
 and gay with every variety of colour and 
 perfume, with a fine view therefrom of the
 
 94 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 silvery Dane flowing broadly between its 
 woods and pastures. 
 
 In oblique view tbe Harlands could obtain 
 a glimpse of the pretty town of Coverley, 
 its fine old cburcli — the parish church of St. 
 Eve's — and its noble bridge. Immediately 
 facing them were Borough Mills proper. 
 
 At the back of the Harlands' house were 
 kitchen-garden and orchard, stretching up 
 towards the railroad and the clover fields of 
 Woldney. 
 
 Roger Harland's prediction with regard to 
 the coming winter being a wet one seemed 
 likely to be verified. 
 
 A week had elapsed since the arrival of the 
 Pringles' governess, and during that entire 
 week, the wind having dropped, it had rained 
 steadily and incessantly. The river was 
 turbid and troubled, and lapped the banks 
 noisily as it rolled between them ; carrying 
 with it upon its swollen tide all sorts of 
 booty that it had snatched to itself on its 
 way — masses of dried reeds, garden shrubs, 
 spars of wood, and other objects which were 
 not distinguishable in the swift eddies and 
 dirty yellow foam. Sometimes the bloated 
 carcase of a dog sailed past ; sometimes an 
 empty bottle went jauntily by; sometimes 
 an old hat or shoe.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 95 
 
 And every day, witli December drawing 
 near, the sad and dismal rain fell regularly, 
 and smote the angry bosom of the river like 
 shot or hail. 
 
 Kate Harland sat by their dining-room 
 window, busy with needle and thread. A 
 big cheery fire burned in the grate, and Kate 
 had partly turned her back upon the dreary 
 scene without. 
 
 The large room was cosily furnished. The 
 furniture, it was true, was of rather ancient 
 date ; but the mahogany everywhere shone 
 like glass. The fender and door-ornaments 
 were of brass ; a few good oil-paintings, 
 dingy with age, adorned the walls ; and if 
 the carpet in places was somewhat worn, it 
 had been a substantial one in its day, and 
 looked in complete harmony with the rest of 
 the room. 
 
 Kate herself was by no means the least 
 pleasing feature in it. She was a well-grown 
 young woman, with an attractive and a sen- 
 sible face, bright and pleasant with health, 
 but a face which had never yefc been con- 
 sidered a " pretty " one in her part of the 
 world. Perhaps she was more popular with 
 men than with members of her own sex — a 
 man who had once seen Kate Harland was 
 always glad to meet her again.
 
 96 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 She was not so dark in complexion as 
 Eoger, though a decided likeness existed be- 
 tween the two. In Kate's estimation Roger 
 stood high— to her he was the finest, the 
 handsomest, the dearest brother in the world. 
 He was a man, said Kate Harland, proudly. 
 
 Her head was bent over the work on her 
 lap; the dull afternoon was growing gray; 
 so that she failed to perceive two female 
 figures, attired in masculine-looking mackin- 
 toshes, that were making their way over the 
 wooden bridge towards the Little Mills. 
 Presently Jill and Hetty Pringle passed the 
 garden-railings ; and, their forms darkening 
 the window, Kate looked up and saw them. 
 
 "With her needlework on her arm, she went 
 herself to the front door. 
 
 " How do you do, both of you ?" she said, 
 heartily. " I admire your courage in coming 
 over. Come in — I am all alone." 
 
 The two girls entered, and proceeded with 
 the freedom of old friends to divest them- 
 selves of their dripping mackintoshes and to 
 place their umbrellas in the ball-stand. 
 
 *' Oh, isn't it simply beastly ! " observed 
 Jill; who in person was large and square and 
 loud, and with a strong likeness to her 
 father. 
 
 '' Beastly is far too mild a word ! *' cried
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 97 
 
 Hetty, energetically ; who in appearance was 
 small and plump and florid, and with a de- 
 cided likeness to her mother. 
 
 " It might be better, I admit," laughed 
 Kate. " However, it is very comfortable 
 indoors ; so come along." 
 
 Relieved of their waterproofs, the Pringle 
 girls were seen to be clad in dark, ex- 
 pensive gowns, handsome sealskin jackets, 
 with brilliant crimson toques upon their 
 heads. Each wore her knot of hair twisted 
 low on her jacket-collar ; and each had a 
 wondrous thick " fringe " reaching quite 
 down to her brows. 
 
 They always tried to look their best when- 
 ever they came over to the Little Mills; be- 
 cause of course there was the possibility of a 
 chat with Eoger, and not infrequently with 
 his friend — Barton Chance — as well. 
 
 A young man was a young man with the 
 Pringle girls; they would trudge any distance, 
 in any weather, to talk to a young man. On 
 this particular afternoon, poor Hetty's 
 "fringe" had suffered obviously from the 
 wind and the dampness of the atmosphere ; 
 but Jill's, which was of coarser growth, was 
 marvellous to behold in its wiry bushiness. 
 Jill, too, before starting, had given hers an 
 extra touch-up with the curling-irons. 
 
 VOL. I. H
 
 98 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " How is Miss Dexter ? '' was Kate's first 
 question, as soon as they were seated round 
 the dining-room fire; her next, before she 
 had received an answer to the first — " Has 
 she to-day left the Lock ? She told me this 
 morning that she should do so." 
 
 Julia Pringle shrugged her large shoulders 
 and said — 
 
 "Oh, I believe she's all right ! She came 
 to us after luncheon looking well enough — 
 and I, for one, was not sorry to see her. 
 Those brats of Louisa's are simply a nuis- 
 ance in the house, and the sooner she fetches 
 them away the sooner shall I bless her ! " 
 
 Hetty began to giggle. 
 
 " It is my fixed belief that she tumbled in 
 . on purpose," said she ; and, as she spoke, she 
 slid from her chair to the hearthrug and 
 spread her plump hands — upon which 
 sparkled numerous costly rings — to the fire. 
 " Jill thinks so too." 
 
 "I said so, in the first place, if you please," 
 snapped Jill. 
 
 " Well, if you did, I thought so all along," 
 retorted Hetty, looking round reproachfully 
 at her sister. " You needn't catch one up 
 so sharp, you cross old thing ! " 
 
 The younger was ever ready to stab the 
 elder with the fact of her seven-and-twenty 
 years.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 99 
 
 "Whom — what — on earth are you talking 
 about ? " asked Kate, pausing in her sewing, 
 which she had not suffered the arrival of th© 
 Pringle girls to interrupt, and staring with 
 a questioning look from one to the other. 
 
 *' Miss Dexter," they answered together ; 
 Jill hastening to add : 
 
 " Yes — we quite believe that she pitched 
 into the Lock and made all that fuss on 
 purpose." 
 
 Kate Harland, indignant as she felt at the 
 foolish accusation against the strange gover- 
 ness, laughed in spite of herself. 
 
 " Why in the world should she take 'the 
 trouble to do so mad a thing?" said she. 
 " She might easily have been drowned on 
 such a dark night — to say nothing of the un- 
 pleasantness of the cold plunge." 
 
 " Oh, it was a romantic adventure, she 
 thought, with Mr. Harland close at hand to 
 rescue her from a watery grave ! " giggled 
 the younger Miss Pringle. 
 
 " It would have been a bad look-out for 
 her, though, if Rog — if Mr. Harland had been 
 unable to swim," grimly observed the burly 
 Jill. 
 
 . " Just wouldn't it ! " cried Hetty, viva- 
 ciously. " What a sell ! " 
 
 ** Well, of one thing I am very sure," said 
 Kate, not without asperity, laying aside her
 
 100 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 work, whicli was now finisTied, and pulling 
 the bell-cord near to which she sat. '' If that 
 of which you accuse Miss Dexter were true — 
 which, however, it could not be, she being, I 
 can plainly see, a gentlewoman in every 
 respect, and, therefore, incapable of such 
 folly — Eoger would have left her, I almost 
 believe, to shift for herself. He is about the 
 last fellow in the world to countenance that 
 kind of nonsense. He hates it too much." 
 
 The Pringle girls shook their bushy toque- 
 crowned locks, and smiled incredulously. 
 
 They judged others of their own sex and 
 age — as the like of them are apt to do — by 
 their own peculiar standard of action. They 
 themselves were constantly on the look-out 
 for an adventure, and would have upset their 
 boat in mid-stream, or pitched head-foremost 
 into the lock or mill-tail with amazing alacrity, 
 could they be but assured beforehand that 
 there was a young man ready to rush and 
 dive to the rescue. 
 
 In answer to Kate's ring, a gaunt, hard- 
 featured woman, in close-fitting white cap 
 and clean apron, entered the room, bear- 
 ing some tea-things and a china dish of 
 thin bread-and-butter. The Miss Pringles 
 always declared that they positively could 
 not exist without afternoon tea, and it
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 101 
 
 amused Kate Harland to humour their absur- 
 dities. Naomi, the wife of Dan'l the fore- 
 man — who, from an attic window, had seen 
 the arrival of Hetty and Jill, and who, like 
 the thorough old servant she was, fully under- 
 stood her mistress's ring — was ready, at the 
 sound of the bell, with the necessary tea 
 equipage. 
 
 '' Oh, you shouldn't bother on our ac- 
 count,'* protested Julia, languidly. " "Why 
 do you?" 
 
 " No, you really shouldn't," echoed Hetty. 
 
 " It's awfully good of you, nevertheless," 
 said Jill. 
 
 *' Awfully," said Hetty. 
 
 ** My dear girls," replied Kate, laughing, 
 *' our kettle is always boiling at this hour — 
 if you want a cup of tea, why not have it ? 
 Besides, it is a fashionable institution — why 
 not be fashionable ? Eoger and I shall be 
 having our own homely meal by-and-by; but 
 we like meat with our tea — at least Roger 
 does." 
 
 Jill and Hetty looked up suspiciously. 
 Was Kate Harland really daring to laugh at 
 them? 
 
 " Is he in the mill to-day ? " inquired Hetty, 
 after a few thoughtful sips. 
 
 ** Who ? Hoger ? Yes ; in the mill and
 
 102 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 very busy. Hetty, I don't believe I Have 
 given you enough cream, have I ? " 
 
 " Loads, thanks," replied Hetty, non- 
 chalantly. 
 
 As the girls sat round the fire, with tea- 
 cups on their knees, their talk drifted back 
 to the subject of Miss Dexter and the singu- 
 larity of her mishap on the night that she 
 arrived. 
 
 "As for that old Ford," said Miss Pringle, 
 contemptuously, taking her tea in audible 
 spoonfuls, " he grows more idiotic every day 
 of his life. It's time, everybody says, that 
 he was turned out and an able-bodied man 
 put in his place. Sir Garth Gilroy, or pa, or 
 somebody, ought to speak to the Dane Con- 
 servancy authorities. I'm sure, last summer 
 people used to scream themselves hoarse at 
 the Lock in their attempts to make the old 
 stupid hear ; and, even when he did appear, 
 he was frequently too feeble to wind back the 
 gates. His rambling chatter about Miss 
 Dexter is really quite too sickening — it is 
 simply babyish. As we came past to-day he 
 was sitting in the porch, all in the rain, cry- 
 ing, and holding his head in his hands, and 
 moaning out — " 
 
 " ' Oh, Minnehaha ! Minnehaha ! She was 
 like my Minna in life again ! '" suddenly sobbed 
 out Hetty, with mock emotion, setting down
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 103 
 
 her cup and dropping her forehead and fringe 
 into the palms of her pink plump hands 
 " — Just like that." 
 
 " Am I telling the story or are you ? '* 
 demanded Miss Pringle, angrily. 
 
 " You, you old crosspatch," replied Hetty, 
 pertly. '' But I will, if you like." 
 
 "You know," continued Jill, with a very 
 red face, yet ignoring the rudeness of her 
 junior, and pointedly addressing Kate as if 
 there was no such person as Hetty in the 
 room, " when Rog — when Mr. Harland 
 rescued her on that night, old Adam, hear- 
 ing, for a wonder, the commotion beneath 
 his window, came out with a light to see 
 what had happened, and Miss Dexter was 
 taken at once into the cottage, it being so 
 close at hand. She was insensible from 
 fright and exhaustion — " 
 
 ''Or shamming insensibility,*' threw in 
 Hetty, nodding. " We know." 
 
 " Insensible from fright and exhaustion," 
 repeated Jill, stonily, " and they — Mr. Har- 
 land and old Adam — carried her upstairs and 
 laid her upon a bed — " 
 
 "I remember," Kate interrupted, quietly. 
 " Did not I go to her the instant I heard 
 what had occurred ? " 
 
 "Oh, of course — I am forgetting," said 
 Jill, with a careless laugh. "We have seen
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kate Haeland, alone, went back to tlie 
 dining-room, and sat there quite quiet and 
 idle for some time, staring into the fire. Her 
 thoughts had returned almost insensibly to 
 the night of the coming of Miss Dexter, and 
 she caught herself pondering the probable 
 result of the governess's advent in their 
 midst. 
 
 That Roger — and somehow at this reflec- 
 tion a cold, strange feeling seemed to settle 
 about Kate's heart — was deeply interested in 
 Miss Dexter was plain ; though, a naturally 
 reserved and self-reliant young man, he had 
 mentioned her name scarcely at all since the 
 night when he had saved her from drowning. 
 At least, of his own will he had not spoken of 
 Miss Dexter. The fact of his having rendered 
 her so great a service would, of course, serve 
 to increase his interest in the stranger, de- 
 cided Kate, between whom and the new^
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 107 
 
 governess a strong mutual liking had already 
 sprung into existence. 
 
 This was but natural. 
 
 As soon as Kate — as she herself had re- 
 minded the Pringle girls — had been made 
 aware of the catastrophe, she had flown to 
 the assistance of Miss Dexter. 
 
 She and Naomi, with tenderest handling, 
 had put her to bed in the Lock cottage, and 
 had done their utmost to restore animation 
 to the unconscious girl ; whilst Eoger, hastily 
 changing his wet clothes for dry ones, had 
 himself saddled his horse and galloped off to 
 Coverley for doctor's aid. Happily, half-way 
 thither, he met Mr. Headstone Payne — a 
 young and remarkably energetic country 
 surgeon, very popular with ladies — who, in 
 his gig, was on his road to the Little Mills^ 
 having just been summoned to the relief of 
 Mrs. Wickie, the matron in the mill-yard. 
 
 Throughout that anxious night had Kate 
 and her gaunt handmaiden watched by the 
 bedside of Miss Dexter; Roger sitting in the 
 kitchen below and listening, or pretending to 
 do so, to the wild talk of the childish old 
 lock-keeper. 
 
 As for the Pringles, they all, having learnt 
 what had happened, went comfortably to bed, 
 and declared amongst themselves that it
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 Kate Haeland, alone, went back to the 
 dining-room, and sat there quite quiet and 
 idle for some time, staring into the fire. Her 
 thoughts had returned almost insensibly to 
 the night of the coming of Miss Dexter, and 
 she caught herself pondering the probable 
 result of the governess's advent in their 
 midst. 
 
 That Eoger — and somehow at this reflec- 
 tion a cold, strange feeling seemed to settle 
 about Kate's heart — was deeply interested in 
 Miss Dexter was plain ; though, a naturally 
 reserved and self-reliant young man, he had 
 mentioned her name scarcely at all since the 
 night when he had saved her from drowning. 
 At least, of his own will he had not spoken of 
 Miss Dexter. The fact of his having rendered 
 her so great a service would, of course, serve 
 to increase his interest in the stranger, de- 
 cided Kate, between whom and the new^
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 107 
 
 governess a strong mutual liking had already- 
 sprung into existence. 
 
 This was but natural. 
 
 As soon as Kate — as she herself had re- 
 minded the Pringle girls — had been made 
 aware of the catastrophe, she had flown to 
 the assistance of Miss Dexter. 
 
 She and Naomi, with tenderest handling, 
 had put her to bed in the Lock cottage, and 
 had done their utmost to restore animation 
 to the unconscious girl ; whilst Roger, hastily 
 changing his wet clothes for dry ones, had 
 himself saddled his horse and galloped off to 
 Coverley for doctor's aid. Happily, half-way 
 thither, he met Mr. Headstone Payne — a 
 young and remarkably energetic country 
 surgeon, very popular with ladies — who, in 
 his gig, was on his road to the Little Mills^ 
 having just been summoned to the relief of 
 Mrs. Wickie, the matron in the mill-yard. 
 
 Throughout that anxious night had Kate 
 and her gaunt handmaiden watched by the 
 bedside of Miss Dexter; Roger sitting in the 
 kitchen below and listening, or pretending to 
 do so, to the wild talk of the childish old 
 lock-keeper. 
 
 As for the Pringles, they all, having learnt 
 what had happened, went comfortably to bed, 
 and declared amongst themselves that it
 
 108 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 served the governess right — her tumbling 
 into the Lock — for having had the audacity to 
 arrive at such an unearthly hour and in such 
 a preposterous fashion. 
 
 However, they sent one of their smart 
 maids round in the morning to inquire how 
 the patient was, and the smart maid tripped 
 back and reported that — according to Mr. 
 Payne — Miss Dexter was at present too ill to 
 be removed from the cottage, and that she 
 had sunk into a sound sleep and still slept. 
 So then Miss Topps, the Pringle damsels' 
 own special domestic, minced round to the 
 Lock, and left word at the door that her 
 mistress and the young "leddies" would 
 look in with inquiries as soon as they could 
 find time to do so ; which somehow did not 
 occur until the second day, when Miss Dexter 
 was well enough to be dressed and to sit up 
 by the fire in the little whitewashed bed- 
 room which had been the bed-room of the 
 lock-keeper's daughter. 
 
 But a severe cold had followed on the 
 effects of the immersion, and the shock and 
 excitement of it all had weakened her con- 
 siderably ; so that for the next few days, at 
 any rate, said Mr. Headstone Payne, the 
 patient must remain where she was. 
 
 When she awoke for the first time to con-
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 109 
 
 sciousness of her strange surroundings — when 
 she had reahzed the event of the past night, 
 and had discovered who it was that sat 
 watching by her bedside — the governess said 
 feverishly : 
 
 " I must write a letter, please, immediately 
 — onlv a few words, Miss Harland — and then 
 — and then I will try to thank you for all 
 that you have done for me.*' 
 
 " Thanking me is nonsense," said Kate, 
 smiling. '' And I think it would be better 
 for you to remain quiet — " 
 
 " But my letter — indeed it must be written 
 at once," had pleaded the governess. " It 
 is of real importance." 
 
 " Frankly, I do not believe that you are 
 yet strong enough to write," said Kate 
 kindly. *' Let me be penwoman ? " 
 
 " I assure you that I am quite strong 
 enough," earnestly replied Miss Dexter — " if 
 you will help me." 
 
 So Kate, without further parley, obtained 
 the necessary articles, and put her firm arm 
 round her new friend, who, thus supported, 
 sat up in bed and scratched hastily, without 
 date or address, the following words : 
 
 " Deaeest Rot, 
 
 " I arrived here late, but am quite 
 safe. Will write you a long, long letter —
 
 110 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 also to Aunt Helen — in a few days' time. 
 Yours, dearest, with a world of love to both, 
 
 With deft delicate fingers she folded and 
 closed the note, and directed the envelope 
 
 to — 
 
 ''Roy Dexter, Esq., 
 
 "17, Cumberland Square, 
 
 '^ London, WJ' 
 
 Her hand trembled visibly when she gave 
 the letter into Kate Harland's custody. 
 
 *' Please let it go as soon as possible," 
 said Miss Dexter, eagerly; "it is to my 
 brother, who will be very anxious to hear 
 from me. It tells him nothing to make him 
 uneasy, for he is extremely delicate, and the 
 slightest cause will sometimes bring on an 
 illness,'' sbe added, with a faint smile. 
 
 " It shall go at once," Kate promised, 
 and left the room with the letter in her 
 hand. 
 
 On that day when the governess was 
 dressed and sitting by the fire in a roomy 
 old chintz-covered chair, Eoger and Adam 
 Ford were allowed to come upstairs to see 
 her. 
 
 Kate noticed that she became much 
 agitated at sight of the men ; that Hoger
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. HI 
 
 himself looked awkward and shy ; and 
 Eoger's sister ascribed the nervousness of 
 both to an embarrassing consciousness of 
 their peculiar relations towards each other. 
 Roger, in the character of preserver, was 
 dreading to be thanked for what he had 
 done ; and Miss Dexter, in that of preserved, 
 was of course struggling to find language 
 good enough in which to express her grati- 
 tude. 
 
 So Kate was settling it in her own mind, 
 when the lock-keeper, suddenly breaking 
 forth in a cry, turned the attention of all to 
 himself. 
 
 " Forgive me, ma'am ! " cried he, falling 
 upon his knees by Miss Dexter's chair — 
 " you are like my dear dead girl, sitting 
 there ! That chair was her arm-chair — her 
 very chair. Oh, my Minna — my dear lost 
 Minna!" 
 
 He clasped the girl's delicate hand within 
 both his own, and wept over it in the childish 
 fashion, the weak abandonment, which was 
 at all events no revelation to Kate and 
 E-oger Harland. 
 
 But Miss Dexter was a stranger to Adam 
 and his ways. She was trying hard to speak. 
 The next instant they perceived that she had 
 fainted.
 
 112 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Then Koger immediately found his tongue* 
 and burst out angrily : " Go down, you old 
 fool, do ! Why the dickens cannot you be 
 rational now and again ? Can't you see that 
 the lady is too ill to understand your non- 
 sensical vagaries • — *' 
 
 He checked himself, remembering Adam's 
 years and affliction ; and gently taking him 
 by the arm, Harland led the old man away, 
 leaving Miss Dexter to Kate's solicitude. 
 And so long as the governess remained at 
 the Lock-cottage Kate Harland watched over 
 her, attended to her comforts, as her especial 
 charge. 
 
 When her presence was required at home,. 
 Kate sent Naomi Drake — an excellent nurse 
 — to take her place. And Miss Topps called 
 every day with inquiries from the Pringle 
 family; and sometimes Miss Topps would 
 bring with her a small rice-pudding, and 
 sometimes some stale blancmange. But 
 Miss Dexter preferred those delicacies which 
 came from the Little Mills. 
 
 Roger, after that first interview, was for 
 sternly forbidding Adam ever again to visit 
 Miss Dexter's room during the few days 
 which would end her enforced stay at the 
 Lock. 
 
 The girl, however, surprised Harland by
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 113 
 
 declaring that she was glad to converse with 
 the old man; he interested her, she said; 
 and that she was stronger now, a great deal 
 stronger, than she had been on that first 
 occasion of their meeting upstairs. 
 
 So Adam, as pleased as a child, used, 
 whenever he could, to steal up and talk 
 to the strange young lady who sat in his 
 dead girl's room ; and sometimes, without 
 knowing that he did so, he would call her 
 Minnehaha. 
 
 Once, after the lock-keeper had been 
 sitting with Miss Dexter and speaking of 
 his lost Minna, Kate coming briskly in h<ad 
 found the girl in tears. She tried to brush 
 them away, but Kate's keen eyes were not 
 to be deceived. The latter affected not to 
 notice the circumstance ; but the governess 
 herself observed : 
 
 " It is nothing ; do not mind me — I feel 
 rather low-spirited to-day. And — and the« 
 old man's tale is so mournful a one, it has> 
 touched me, saddened me inexpressibly." 
 
 " He is a very tiresome old man ! " said 
 Kate, impatiently. '' If I were you, my dear, 
 I would not have him up here at all. He is 
 but doleful company at the best of times." 
 
 " On the contrary, I like him to come," 
 Miss Dexter replied, more calmly. " Besides,*** 
 
 VOL. I. I
 
 114 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 with a little smile, "is not he in his own 
 house ? " 
 
 *'He does not know half his time what 
 he is chattering about," said Kate, with 
 decision. " My brother always says that 
 he is as mad as a March hare." 
 
 To this Miss Dexter made no response ; 
 only bowed her head, as if in token that 
 she understood. 
 
 And so the week slipped by, and the 
 governess grew well enough to enter upon 
 her duties. 
 
 When she quitted the Lock-cottage for 
 the Pringles' house she pressed some gold 
 pieces into the hand of Adam Ford — gold 
 pieces which represented a sum that is 
 seldom — at least for fanciful charity — at 
 the command of governesses engaged at a 
 salary of forty pounds a year. And he, 
 on receiving them, looked earnestly, with 
 his vacant, troubled eyes, first at the donor 
 and then at the money, and said, with 
 grateful simplicity, that he should never 
 spend it — never — he should keep it always 
 for her sake — yes, always for her sake — 
 because she was so beautiful and so like 
 his dear dead Minna ! 
 
 And then, when the strange lady was 
 fairly gone from the cottage, Adam sat
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 115 
 
 down in tlie porch, regardless of the weather, 
 his arms flung over his bent gray head, and 
 sobbed aloud in the weak and broken manner 
 which the Pringle girls had described to 
 Kate when they called at the Little Mills. 
 Yet they had told her nothing that she did 
 not know before ; she, during the past week, 
 having been constantly with the young 
 stranger, and they having got their infor- 
 mation second-hand from the mincing abigail 
 Topps. 
 
 By-and-by Naomi came into the dining- 
 room, but Kate stirred not from her thought- 
 ful attitude. The tall old servant lit the 
 lamp, drew down the blinds, and then the 
 warm curtains over them. She heaped on 
 more firing, and swept the hearth clean ; 
 and then, having removed the kettledrum 
 equipage, with a snort of open disdain, 
 Naomi spread the cloth for regular tea and 
 brought in a home-cured ham. The master, 
 whom she had hugged as a baby, had, Naomi 
 was well aware, the wholesome appetite of a 
 strong and an industrious man; and Kate 
 herself never neglected to ascertain that 
 there was something good in the house for 
 Roger's tea. 
 
 Presently, with a start, the mistress looked 
 up.
 
 116 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " Why, is it you again, Naomi ! Where is 
 Hannah this afternoon ? " 
 
 " That gal Hanner is as ockard as any 
 mule," grumbled ]^[aomi. '' She's gone to 
 Coverley." 
 
 " She might have waited for a better day," 
 said Kate — " though I believe I gave her 
 permission to go." 
 
 " Jest what I said, Miss Kate. But there, 
 it ain't a mossel o' use to waste breath on 
 Hanner ; especially when she's got finery 
 in her hi," returned Naomi, with indigna- 
 tion. " She'd trapse through muck and mire 
 above her middle, that gal would, to buy 
 a hartificial for her Sunday bonnet. She 
 says she shall have a yaller rose — a yaller 
 rose indeed ! " 
 
 Naomi stalked out, muttering wrathfully 
 " A yaller rose ! " and the mistress of the 
 Little Mills once more fell into a brown 
 study, seeing odd things and familiar faces 
 in the heart of the fire before her. Again 
 she started, for a solid hand was laid upon 
 her shoulder. Koger, in his dusty clothes, 
 was standing beside her on the hearthrug. 
 
 *' Kate, old woman, you were snoring ! " 
 
 She laughed, jumped up, and pressed her 
 hands tight upon her eyes to banish the 
 visions they had seen.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 117 
 
 "I was deep in though fc, my dear," she 
 said. " I did not even hear you come in." 
 
 " What, pray, were you thinking about ? '* 
 
 "I was thinking of Miss Dexter," was 
 Kate's quiet reply. 
 
 " Oh ! " said Roger, blushing suddenly 
 through his flour. 
 
 " She is really gone to the Pringles to- 
 day," said Kate. " She went to them after 
 luncheon. Jill and Hetty have been here ; 
 and — and, Roger," added his sister, with a 
 sigh, '* I greatly fear that Miss Dexter will 
 not be very happy with those girls at Borough 
 Mills." 
 
 " Ah ! " was all that Roger said this time. 
 And forthwith, with much care in the opera- 
 tion, he seated himself at the table and began 
 
 to carve the ham. 
 
 * ^ * ^ * 
 
 When Hannah, towards seven o'clock, re- 
 turned to the Little Mills, laden with paper- 
 bags — herself and her parcels alike sopped 
 through and through, according to Naomi — 
 she brought with her the news that Sir 
 Garth Gilroy had come back to the Moat ; 
 for the Woldney carriage had met him, de- 
 clared Hannah, at the Coverley Station. 
 
 " It passed me on the Redtown road," said 
 she, as she unlaced her thick wet boots before
 
 118 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 the kitchen fire ; " and I see his white face in 
 the carriage Hghts. Mr. Chance was with 
 him, for I see him too." 
 
 And when Roger came into supper, Kate 
 said to him as she brought him his slippers : 
 
 " Roger, Sir Garth Gilroy has returned 
 this evening to the Moat. Did you know 
 it?" 
 
 "Nonsense !" replied he. "I saw Barton 
 only this morning, and he said nothing about 
 it. Sir Garth is not expected until Christ- 
 mas." 
 
 " Barton was with him in the carriage," 
 rejoined Kate. And she repeated Hannah's 
 story. 
 
 " Can't be," said Harland, thoughtfully. 
 " Unless — " 
 
 He stopped, and looked up at his sister 
 with a queer, questioning expression in his 
 eyes. He kicked off his boots in silence. 
 
 " Ah, my dear ; that's just it," nodded 
 Kate, drily enigmatical. Then she added : 
 " He has come home all in a hurry, as he has 
 come home all in a hurry before to-day — for 
 the simple reason that he was compelled to 
 do so. He telegraphed to Barton, depend 
 upon it, Roger." 
 
 " Phew ! " whistled Roger. " I suspect 
 you're right, old girl."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 119 
 
 "Women are, always" laughed she — 
 " only they so seldom get their due ! " 
 
 So saying, Kate Harland quitted the room 
 for a moment to speak to Naomi in the 
 kitchen ; and Roger, left to himself, heard 
 the restless moan of the swollen river and 
 the familiar throb of his busy mill — the 
 black night brooding over all.
 
 CHAPTER Y. 
 
 " Oh — — — o ! " cried Hetty Pringle, with 
 desperate clutches at her companion's arm. 
 '' I shall fall, Mr. Chance ; I — I — I am certain 
 I shall fall ! " 
 
 Then she gasped, reeled, and clung to her 
 cavalier even more tenaciously, if possible, 
 than she had clung before. 
 
 He supported her, laughing ; and said — 
 
 " Try again. Miss Hetty. Ce n'est que le 
 'premier pas qui coute, vous savez.'^ 
 
 " That's — all — very — well — in theory, vous 
 savez^^ panted Hetty, recovering her balance 
 with difficulty, and venturing very gingerly 
 to move onward again ; " but the 'premier 
 pas with skates on one's feet, Mr. Chance, is 
 likely to cost one a good deal, I — I — I am 
 afraid. Ah ! " 
 
 Here Hetty staggered ludicrously ; grabbed 
 at the young man this time in vain ; and sat 
 down suddenly upon the ice before him.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 121 
 
 " What a spectacle you're making of your- 
 self ! " called out Jill, scornfully, as, hand- 
 in-hand with some Coverley youth consider- 
 ably smaller than herself, she totfcered past 
 her sister ; who, with Barton Chance bending 
 over her and good-temperedly assisting her 
 in the task, was now endeavouring to stand 
 erect once more. 
 
 " You're not cutting an over-brilliant — 
 oh ! — figure, is she, Mr. Chance ? " observed 
 Hetty, with great caution, " as far as I am 
 any judge in the matter. She goes along — 
 oh ! — very much after the fashion of a cat 
 in walnut-shells, doesn't she, Mr. Chance ? " 
 
 '' That, at any rate, is better than not 
 going along at all," Jill was looking over 
 her shoulder to retort ; when, with scarce a 
 second's warning, her heels slid outward, and 
 Miss Pringle lay in a heap with her unfortu- 
 nate youth upon the top of her. 
 
 Hetty could afford to crow in spite of her 
 mishaps ; for had not she managed to secure 
 Barton Chance to herself, whilst Jill — up to 
 the present — had been compelled to rest 
 satisfied with the unwilling aid oE a school- 
 boy ? ^ 
 
 " Retribution ! " shrieked Hetty,, delight- 
 edly — '' isn't it, Mr. Chance ? Serve you 
 right, old lady, for laughing at me ! "
 
 122 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Poor Jill was too smothered and shaken 
 to reply ; and Hetty and her handsome 
 cavalier went delicately on their way. 
 
 As for Barton, he pitied himself intensely, 
 seeing that Hetty Pringle had " nabbed '* 
 him, as he called it, early in the afternoon ; 
 and as yet he could discern not the faintest 
 probability of ridding himself of her un- 
 welcome preference. He was not this after- 
 noon exactly in the humour to talk and 
 " chaff " with Hetty, for there was in the 
 distance a figure upon the ice — a figure 
 neatly and darkly clad, and innocent alike 
 of costly furs and bushy red-toque-crowned 
 locks, that skated quietly and well, with an 
 erect and a business-like air — whom Barton 
 Chance was impatient to join. 
 
 Still, he was too sweet-tempered to allow 
 the girl at his side to perceive that to him, in 
 his present frame of mind, her society wa& 
 little better than a nuisance. 
 
 To aggravate affairs. Barton himself was 
 an accomplished skater, and could perform 
 all kinds of fantastic movements ; and, natur- 
 ally, Hetty's pitiable incapability irritated the 
 young man exceedingly. 
 
 All the same. Barton chatted and smiled 
 in an encouraging manner, and swore that 
 ere long Miss Hetty would be able to " go
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 123 
 
 backwards," naj, to execute the " outside 
 edge " with the most consummate ease. 
 
 Although Hetty herself did not believe a 
 word of this prediction, she said : 
 
 " Do you really think so, Mr. Chance 
 — really and truly ? " — and audaciously 
 squeezed his arm, her hold on which was 
 already like that of a vice — " How nice ! " 
 
 " Yes, upon my word," answered Barton, 
 " you will at this rate. Why, you're getting 
 along like a house a-fire ! " And all the 
 while his eyes were roving after that distant 
 figure moving easily hither and thither 
 amongst the crowd of skaters in the figld. 
 
 Hetty's aim, perhaps, on that afternoon 
 was not so much to learn to skate as to keep 
 Mr. Barton Chance by her side as long as 
 possible, and so to triumph over Jill and her 
 hobbledehoy. She knew that Barton was not 
 what her mother considered '' an eligible 
 young man ; " nor was he, perhaps, a very 
 steady young man. But he was pleasant to 
 be seen with, being so good-looking ; plea- 
 sant to talk to ; was to be met at most of the 
 houses whither the Pringles themselves went ; 
 and, above all, as agent and steward to Sir 
 Garth Gilroy, he lived at Woldney Moat. 
 
 This counted for not a little in the estima- 
 tion of the Pringles, who certainly, in a
 
 124 LIKE LOST SHEEP, 
 
 fashion, knew a good deal of Sir Gartli him- 
 self. At least, the head of the Pringle 
 household knew a good deal of the affairs 
 of Sir Garth Gilroy. 
 
 But it was at the Little Mills that the 
 Pringle girls most frequently met Barton 
 Chance. 
 
 He was a young man of good descent, his 
 family, the earlier members of which had once 
 owned a considerable estate in the county of 
 Suffolk, having come down, through extrava- 
 gance, with a rush, in the world. Indeed, his 
 father and Sir Garth Gilroy had been young 
 men together in days gone by; so that when, 
 some three years back, affairs at the Moat 
 had got into such a plight that they were 
 fast drifting beyond the control of its negli- 
 gent master, he remembered the existence of 
 the son of his old friend, and wrote and 
 offered Barton the post he now occupied in 
 the old ruin at "Woldney. 
 
 Chance, at that date, had left Cheltenham, 
 where he had been educated, and was then 
 living in easy idleness at the house of his 
 guardian in London. But that gentleman 
 had recently made known to him that there 
 were no funds available for an University 
 course, and that it therefore behoved him to 
 look out for something to do in the world 
 with all possible despatch.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 125 
 
 Sir Garth's offer was a timely one, and 
 Barton at once accepted it. The young 
 fellow was almost alone in life, bis parents 
 being dead and his only sister married and 
 settled in Canada. And though, it may be, 
 he would have preferred to remain in town, 
 since nothing in the way of employment there 
 presented itself to him, he perforce bowed to 
 circumstances and resi2:ned himself to life in 
 the country. 
 
 He came to Woldney, and Sir Garth, per- 
 ceiving that the young man seemed equal to 
 the work required of him, took himself off to 
 foreign soil again, saying, as usual, that it 
 was uncertain when he should return, and 
 leaving Barton to do the best he could with 
 the mass of muddled business which he found 
 at the Moat. 
 
 Sir Garth Gilroy, Chance very soon dis- 
 covered, was for ever coming and going 
 without ceremony or warning. Sometimes 
 he would stop at Woldney for a night or 
 two only; at other times he would remain for 
 a month. And the home-coming of the master 
 of the dreary old mansion was generally a 
 matter of compulsion. This, too, Barton had 
 discovered as time went on. 
 
 The young man soon made himself happy 
 enough in his new quarters ; he was a natu- 
 rally contented and easy-going fellow. He
 
 126 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 had his own rooms in the old house ; there 
 was a horse and dog-cart always at his com- 
 mand ; he was entirely, for the greater part 
 of the year, his own master. 
 
 If he felt inclined to run up to town for a 
 day or so's change, he had the leisure and 
 the moderate means wherewith to indulge the 
 inclination. Barton, ere long, began to con- 
 sider himself as not being so badly placed 
 after all ; for he was very fond of an easy 
 life, of pleasure and of pleasant things. 
 
 Fishing, one summer evening, from the 
 banks of the Woldney meadows, Sir Garth's 
 young agent met Roger Harland, engaged 
 upon the same occupation as himself. The 
 two men got into conversation, as anglers 
 will, and Eoger, shy and reserved as he knew 
 himself to be, felt vaguely astonished at the 
 manner in which he thawed towards Barton 
 Chance. Perhaps, however, the secret lay 
 in Barton's own singularly winning and 
 attractive personality. Later on they strolled 
 together, with their fishing-tackle, over the 
 bridge in Harland' s homeward direction — 
 Barton saying that he was in no hurry to get 
 back to the Moat — and so to the garden- gate 
 of the Little Mills. 
 
 Eoger, in his quiet way, suggested that 
 his new acquaintance should come in for a
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 127 
 
 glass of beer or a little cold whiskej-and- 
 water — it was yet early. Barton, nothing 
 loath, acquiesced immediately; and, with 
 Boger entering the cool pleasant house, he 
 was introduced to his friend's sister Kate. 
 
 From that evening thenceforward he be- 
 came a frequent visitor at the Little Mills ; 
 and the acquaintance thus begun by degrees 
 ripened into a treasured friendship. Barton 
 conceived a great respect for Harland ; and 
 Eoger, on his part, was often the means, by 
 brotherly talk and sensible advice, of saving 
 Chance from many a folly and the conse- 
 quences attendant on it. He was continually 
 looking in with a new song for Kate to try 
 over, a new magazine, some flowers from the 
 wild old gardens at Woldney, a new pipe for 
 Roger to examine — Barton had always a 
 laughing excuse for these frequent visits of 
 his. 
 
 At the Little Mills Chance first met the 
 Pringle girls, who made a " dead set " at him 
 with their fascinating powers the instant the 
 introduction was an accomplished fact be- 
 tween them. 
 
 " He was so awfully good-looking ! " they 
 whispered to each other on going away. 
 And it was true. Barton Chance was 
 blessed with beauty of no common order —
 
 128 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 a " perfect face and perfect form." He was 
 neither so tall nor so strong-looking as 
 Roger Harland, said the Pringle girls, but 
 he was a million times handsomer — oh yes ! 
 His eyes were sweetest, darkest blue, pro- 
 nounced Hetty rapturously ; in fact they 
 were the true, rare violet colour. 
 
 Barton, indeed, was very fair — with the 
 warm, downy fairness of a rich ripe peach. 
 His hair was crisp and golden ; his thick 
 eyebrows and eyelashes, in reality of a light 
 tan colour, looked sometimes a quite dark 
 brown, when a deeper flush than usual was 
 glowing upon his handsome face. 
 
 His features were strikingly clean-cut; 
 his teeth were beautifully white — continual 
 smoking apparently failing to spoil them ; 
 whilst the long tawny moustache which 
 drooped from his red upper-lip hid a mouth 
 which was as sweet and smiling as that of a 
 pretty woman. 
 
 Such was Barton Chance, sunny-tempered 
 and weak of will; nay, with many faults 
 which needed but opportunity, perhaps, to 
 broaden into actual vices. But Julia Pringle 
 — in the phraseology of Agatha Groldraore in 
 Fundi — had declared to her sister Hetty thp.t 
 Barton was "like a young Greek god." As 
 for his careless, impulsive nature — which, in 
 all probability, would prove his greatest
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 129 
 
 drawback in life — that, without doubt, he 
 had, with his good looks, inherited from his 
 mother, who had been a charming Irish- 
 woman; but whose improvident light-hearted 
 ways, upon her introduction into the Chance 
 family, had certainly wrought that family 
 no especial good. 
 
 Christmas was approaching ; hard and 
 frosty weather had followed upon the heels 
 of gale and flood. The riverside meadows 
 in the neighbourhood of Coverley were 
 sheeted with water ; and business now at 
 the Borough Mills, both the greater and the 
 less, was at a standstill, owing to the blocks 
 of ice which, floating down stream, had 
 made their way into the mill-ponds and 
 clogged the mill-wheels. 
 
 The afternoon was dim and bitterly cold; 
 the sun, already westering and showing like 
 a globe of smouldering fire through the haze 
 overhead, promised a continuance of the 
 present hard weather. 
 
 All the idler members of Coverley society 
 were, on that December afternoon, disporting 
 themselves upon the ice — in a meadow about 
 a quarter of a mile removed from Roger 
 Harland's mill — and were airing their ac- 
 complishments, or their lack of them, in a 
 fashion not unamusing to observe. 
 
 VOL. I, "^ K
 
 130 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Those wlio really could skate swept and 
 curved and sailed about and turned hither 
 and thither on one leg, backward or for- 
 ward, as the humour of the moment seized 
 them, and cut hieroglyphics upon the glassy 
 surface; those that could not, tripped up 
 and rolled over one another, or sat down un- 
 expectedly at every turn. 
 
 Some, with the aid of a chair, crept fear- 
 fully along, trembling for what might be 
 coming in their rear ; others, striking boldly 
 out, with a "look at me " sort of air, either 
 triumphed, as they deserved to do, or failed 
 disastrously in their attempt to shine. 
 
 There were tiresome scared little curs that 
 would get in the way of everyone ; there 
 were equally tiresome louts and hobblede- 
 hoys who would play " hocky '' when they 
 were not engaged in earning pence for 
 fastening on the skates of the public ; there 
 were the usual groups of on-lookers in the 
 field who criticised the performers and 
 gossiped as they watched. 
 
 " Do you see," said Hetty Pringle to 
 Barton Chance — '' oh ! do let's rest a 
 moment — do you see those two old cats 
 on the bank — " 
 
 " Two old cats ? " repeated Barton, me- 
 chanically; looking, however, in a quite 
 wrong direction. " Where ? ''
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. • 131 
 
 "Not there — but yonder, on the towing- 
 path by the gate," answered Hetty, with 
 a slight nod of her brilUant toque in the line 
 of vision indicated. " I'll be bound they're 
 saying something nasty about everybody — 
 about us, perhaps, Mr. Chance ! " 
 
 " Oh, I see ! — Miss Bishop and Miss 
 Eager," said Barton. " Ah, very likely ! I 
 have met them once or twice at the Little 
 Mills. They are a pleasant couple, are they 
 not ? " 
 
 " I can't think why Kate Harland will 
 have anything to do with them," Hetty 
 remarked. " Why, there is Kate 1" she 
 broke off, " talking to Miss Dexter and 
 the brats. It's the first time I've caught 
 sight of her. Do you see her, Mr. Chance — 
 Kate Harland, I mean ? " 
 
 " I've seen her for some time," said Barton, 
 restlessly. 
 
 " And I declare there's Hoger — I mean 
 Mr. Harland — come into the field, and 
 putting on his skates too. Poor Jill, she's 
 hobbling over to him, or trying to. Do look 
 at her, Mr. Chance ! Isn't she droll ? Oh, 
 dear ! down again she goes, full sprawl in 
 the very path of Tim Maltover. That, I 
 verily believe, was a ruse of Jill's ; I know 
 her so well. See ! the guileless Tim has 
 fallen into the trap, and is helping her to
 
 132 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 get up. And, yes ! I thought so ! He is 
 now going to give her a turn. Bravo, Jill ! 
 very nicely done." 
 
 " I should imagine that your sister, by 
 this time, must be pretty well black and 
 blue," observed Barton, with a laughing ligbt 
 in his bright, beautiful eyes, '' judging from 
 the style in which she goes to work." 
 
 " Oh, the bruises, Jill considers, are gained 
 in a good cause," Hetty returned, flippantly. 
 " She'll lay in a larger stock yet, you'll see,. 
 Mr. Chance,' before we leave the ice." 
 
 '' How do you mean ? " 
 
 ''Why, having wearied out Tim Malt- 
 over, with her conversation for a certainty 
 — perhaps with her weight — she will next 
 contrive to enlist the help and sympathy 
 of his brother Phil. Phil, in his turn, having 
 been bored out of his five senses, she will 
 proceed to lay siege to Mr. Headstone Payne 
 — he is in the meadow ; I saw him with the 
 Miss Bilfils not a minute ago. If Headstone 
 Payne is too sharp for her, she'll catch hold 
 of Roger Harland — and so on throughout 
 the afternoon." 
 
 " And all this manoeuvring on your sister's 
 part will necessitate, you say, a good deal of 
 — what shall we call it ? " laughed Barton — 
 w^ell, of self-abasement, bruises, and what 
 
 ({
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 133 
 
 not. 'Pon my word, Miss Hetty, I think 
 you're rather rough on Miss Pringle." 
 
 " Not a bit of it ! " answered the girl, 
 lightly. " She's a regular fiend to me 
 sometimes, and so I always put a spoke 
 in her wheel whenever I get an oppor- 
 tunity." 
 
 *' Ah, I see. May I light a pipe ? " Chance 
 inquired. 
 
 " Why do you ask ? — you know you may. 
 Yes ; and that as well. Go on ; I'm not a 
 bit shocked ; besides you want it, of course, 
 to keep out the cold. And then when you're 
 refreshed I think we'll be moving again — my 
 feet are getting quite numbed." 
 
 Barton groaned inwardly. 
 
 " I do wish," continued the sprightly Hetty, 
 " that we had learnt to skate earlier. I feel 
 downright ashamed of myself this afternoon ; 
 but somehow we never before cared to try, 
 or it was a mild winter and there was no ice, 
 or we were from home and near no water if 
 it did happen to freeze, and all like that, 
 don't you know — Oh, gracious ! " giggled 
 the damsel, as Chance, before putting the 
 spirit to his own lips, gravely, yet with a 
 roguish downward glance at her, tendered the 
 flask to his companion — " do you really mean 
 it ? Will it not make me cough and choke,
 
 134 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 and — and perhaps tipsy? Oli, Mr. Chance, 
 it would be dreadful if it got into my head, 
 and I were to tumble down and couldn't get 
 up again ! Well, only a leetle tiny sip, then, 
 Mr. Chance. Goodness me, it's whiskey ! " 
 cried Hetty, with an expression of mock 
 horror in eyes and tone, but swallowed what 
 she had taken nevertheless. 
 
 "Finest old Scotch in the world. Miss 
 Hetty — wouldn't hurt a baby," answered the 
 young man. " A fellow I know in town gets 
 it direct from Edinburgh, and I have it from 
 him. Feel better?" 
 
 Warmer, decidedly," replied Hetty, archly. 
 Never did such a thing before," she added, 
 confidentially. " Please, don't split, Mr. 
 Chance ! " 
 
 " Not I. Are you ready ? " 
 
 " Quite." 
 
 She strangled a grimace in its infancy, and 
 once more gave him her hand. Her feet, 
 with their new skates and leather strapping, 
 were aching to positive agony ; but Hetty 
 had no intention of giving up the sport so 
 long as she could manage to keep Barton as 
 her partner. So he, having lit his meerschaum 
 and drained the silver flask, gallantly — making 
 the best of a bad job — sallied forth again into 
 the moving throng, with the heroic Hetty 
 tottering by his side. 

 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 135 
 
 " Well, if ever I did ! " exclaimed Miss 
 Bishop. Miss Bishop was massive and cor- 
 pulent, with a double chin and eye-glasses, 
 and a false auburn front with a black velvet 
 band across it to prevent it from slipping 
 over her nose, with which, by the way, the 
 keen north breeze was dealing far from kindly. 
 Her voice was loud and rasping, and was apt 
 to set one's teeth on edge. '' Well, if ever I 
 did ! " said Miss Bishop. " A pretty scene 
 truly ! Those Pringle girls take one's breath 
 away ! " 
 
 " Nobody, Maria, is ever astonished at 
 what they do — you know that," said* Miss 
 Eager. Miss Eager was wiry and dried-up 
 looking; her features were brown and 
 pinched ; her hair, which was her own, was 
 growing very white. In appearance, at least, 
 she was a contrast in every respect to the 
 other spinster lady, with whom she had lived 
 for the past twenty years. 
 
 The two had been school-girls together, 
 friends all their lives ; and, at this date, they 
 rented conjointly a very clean and comfort- 
 able house in the High Street of Coverley- 
 on-Dane. Their incomes separately were 
 small ones; but, put together, made a re- 
 spectable sum. They dressed alike in a 
 fashion which they fondly believed to be the 
 prevailing one, and they had earned for them-
 
 136 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 selves the not perhaps unjust reputation for 
 possessing the bitterest tongues in Coverley. 
 Kindly Mrs. Harland, however, had always 
 counted Miss Bishop and Miss Eager amongst 
 her Coverley acquaintances ; and Kate, for 
 her mother's sake, never failed in civility 
 towards the two maiden ladies. 
 
 Standing there upon the frozen towing- 
 path by the meadow gate — of course, not for 
 kingdoms would they have ventured upon the 
 ice — their hands in their muffs, and each with 
 an umbrella tucked under her arm, the two 
 spinster ladies had been watching Hetty 
 Pringle and Barton Chance, and had seen 
 the girl refreshing herself from Barton's 
 silver flask. 
 
 " The manner in which those girls run 
 after young men in the town is — is — simply 
 appalling," said Miss Eager, sourly. 
 
 " Julia Pringle, you observe, Rachel," said 
 Miss Bishop, " has got hold of one of the 
 Maltover young men. They are getting to 
 know all sorts of folk — the Pringles, I mean 
 — what with their money, and the carriage, 
 and the ladies' maid, and dickens knows 
 what besides I I haven't common patience 
 with such airs and graces — that I haven't ! " 
 
 " Well, the Maltovers are nobody," said 
 Miss Eager, with fine contempt; "though,
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 137 
 
 for second-rate country brewers, I must say, 
 they have a pretty high opinion of them- 
 selves ! My own father was a Staffordshire 
 brewer, you know, Maria, and as good as 
 any other brewer, as brewers go, as far as I 
 can tell." 
 
 " There's more than one pack in Coverley 
 whom I should be very happy to tell 'em 
 what I thought of 'em,'* said Miss Bishop, 
 importantly. " The Singletons, for instance 
 — coming into the place and sticking them- 
 selves up for quite big people in a little way. 
 I've not common patience with such tom- 
 foolery ! My cousin, Lavinia Simpson,* at 
 Highgate — did I tell you, Kachel ? — knows 
 all about them. They had, it seems, a 
 hosiery and haberdashery business some- 
 where or other Islington way ; and they 
 come down here and give out that their 
 father was a surgeon in the Indian Army, 
 and has seen active service in the Punjaub ! 
 — just because the old man has a cork arm in 
 the place of the one which, Lavinia says, he 
 lost by amputation after an accident in the 
 Underground Railway ! Well, the old man 
 has three of them — and no beauties either — 
 to find husbands for ; and I only wish they 
 .may catch 'em in Coverley ! " 
 
 " The place is overrun with girls of all
 
 138 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 sorts — good, bad, and indifferent," observed 
 Miss Eager. 
 
 " And worthless young men," snarled Miss 
 Bishop, '' who won't marry." 
 
 " Tiiey don't, or they won't, or they can't," 
 said Miss Eager. " I don't know which it is." 
 
 " They want whipping to church," said 
 Miss Bishop. " The girls — oldish girls some 
 of 'em are — are ready enough to go." 
 
 " It's no good their going alone, of course," 
 observed Miss Eager, drily. 
 
 " Now there are seven Miss Bilfiis, as you 
 know, Eachel," said Miss Bishop — " Lawyer 
 Bilfil's daughters. What's to become of 
 them, pray — " 
 
 " Lovely as they are ! " interjected Miss 
 Eager, chuckling. *' I've seen three of the 
 brood in the meadow this afternoon — curate- 
 hunting. Poor parsons ! " 
 
 "What's to become of them, I repeat, 
 Rachel ? " Miss Bishop continued. " I'm 
 glad I'm not their father ! Regularly as 
 August comes round, they let their house 
 and troop off to the seaside ; each one of the 
 seven takes it in turn to stay with some fine 
 relatives they've got in London ; and what is 
 the result ? Back they come every year to 
 Coverley — still the Miss Bilfiis. It must be 
 weary work ! " 
 
 " There are always the curates to hope
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 139 
 
 something from,'* said Miss Eager, in her 
 thin, asthmatic voice. " Dear, dear ! What, 
 I wonder, would the Coverley young women 
 do without their St. Eve's and their after- 
 noon and early ' masses,' and the flighty 
 fledglings in clerical clothes who don't care a 
 button for the Reverend Septimus Haze ? 
 Give 'em plenty of lawn-tennis and flirta- 
 tion, and the Coverley curates ask no more." 
 
 " That Reverend Felix Scamper is a nice 
 specimen," said Miss Bishop, " from all that 
 I can hear, Rachel — married man though he 
 is. Did Susan tell you about Miss Sn^e, 
 the Lady Principal, as she calls herself, of 
 the Cottage Hospital, and the hot sausages 
 for supper? The poor creatures upstairs 
 tearing away at their bells to deaf ears, the 
 Vicar himself calling unexpectedly in South 
 Street on his way home from a dinner at 
 Major Long worth's, and the Reverend Felix 
 being bundled ignominiously by the nurses 
 and Miss Snaffle into the flour-bin — " 
 
 " Hush — hush ! Here come the Vicar and 
 his better-half." 
 
 " His better-half, with a vengeance, if 
 report speaks truly," said Miss Bishop. 
 " She must be fifty if she is a day ; though 
 she pulls herself in at the waist as if she 
 were a chit of sixteen ! " 
 
 " I've sat behind her at ^ mass,' " said Miss
 
 140 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Eager, ironically, "and heard tHe stitches 
 crack." 
 
 This in an undertone, whilst the speaker 
 stared straight before her as if gazing at 
 some object in a distant part of the field; 
 for at that moment the Eeverend Septimus 
 Haze and his wife, the Yicaress, as vulgar 
 Coverley scoffers jocosely called her, passed 
 €lose along the towing-path by the two 
 maiden ladies ; to whom the pair vouch- 
 safed a condescending bow and shadowy 
 smile as a token of favour sufficient for 
 members of their flock who were not within 
 the magic circle of the " Yicarage set." 
 
 " What a plump and dreamy little man it 
 is," remarked Miss Bishop, with scant re- 
 spect, looking after her pastor and master 
 with quizzical jpince-nez^ the instant he and 
 his spouse were out of earshot. " Gracious ! 
 Actually the couple of 'em are stopping to 
 speak to the Pringles; and the Pringles 
 don't belong to the parish at all — they go to 
 Margrave." 
 
 *' The Pringles have money," said Miss 
 Eager, sarcastically. " The Pringles are 
 intimate with Sir G-arth Gilroy." 
 
 " A curious sort of intimacy, that, I 
 fancy," replied Miss Bishop, grimly. " We 
 ;shall see, Rachel, what it leads to."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 141 
 
 "All the same, the Gilroys are an old 
 county family, and — " 
 
 " And highly reputable some of its mem- 
 bers have been, too," sneered Miss Bishop ; 
 " to say nothing of the present representative 
 of the family ! " 
 
 *' I daresay old Pringle knows what he is 
 about," said Miss Eager. 
 
 " I'll be bound he does," Miss Bishop re- 
 plied. 
 
 " I'm told that the little big folk — as we 
 call 'em, Maria — the Bilfils and the Malt- 
 overs and the Singletons — are frightfully 
 jealous of the Pringles' intimacy with Sir 
 Garth Gilroy." 
 
 "Yery likely, Rachel," answered Miss 
 Bishop, in her hardest tone ; " but it will be 
 some time hence, I venture to predict, before 
 the Maltovers and their lot find themselves 
 taken up by the county." 
 
 " Pigs may fly, of course," said Miss 
 Eager. 
 
 ISo wagged the tongues of these two famous 
 Coverley spinsters, in the identical style in 
 which they had wagged over their neigh- 
 bours and their neighbours' affairs and 
 doings for a good many years past now. 
 They belonged to that class of common- 
 place people who apparently never grow
 
 142 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 weary of talking of tlie same tMng. Gossip 
 to them is the salt of life. 
 
 Suddenly Kate Harland, in her plain yet 
 well-fitting dark clothes, stood before the 
 two maiden ladies upon the ice which bor- 
 dered the meadow-path. 
 
 She was still alone ; her face, flushed with 
 the cold air and exercise, betrayed nothing. 
 She smiled very pleasantly as she said to the 
 two elderly spinsters — who started at seeing 
 Kate so near, they not having noticed her 
 swift approach — 
 
 " JSTaomi has sent us out some beautiful 
 hot tea, and some hot seed-cake as well. It 
 must be cold work standing about and look- 
 ing on. Will not you come and join us ? 
 You needn't cross the ice, for we have spread 
 the rugs by the hedge near the next gate. 
 Don't say no," said Kate, with another smile. 
 
 " I don't think we mean to, my dear 
 Kate," spoke up Miss Bishop. " Do we, 
 Eachel ? " 
 
 " No. I was really, not a moment ago, 
 wishing it were possible to get a cup of tea," 
 fibbed Miss Eager, politely. 
 
 " Then come along," returned Kate, gaily; 
 " or we shall find it all drunk, or cold." 
 
 She skated on ahead. Miss Bishop and 
 Miss Eager following, with careful steps, in 
 her wake. ♦
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 143 
 
 " That new governess of the Pringles has 
 joined them, too, I can see," whispered Miss 
 Eager to her companion. Miss Eager was 
 lynx-sighted and needed no pmce-nezto assist 
 her vision. " This will be a capital oppor- 
 tunity to ascertain what she is like, Maria. I 
 wonder where they got her from ? " 
 
 " We must find out, Eachel," said Miss 
 Bishop, with determination. 
 
 " Yes. But we won't stay long, Maria," 
 answered Miss Eager, glancing round un- 
 easily. " Eemember my asthma — the fog's 
 rising."
 
 CHAPTER YI. 
 
 Somewhat apart from the group gathered- 
 round Naomi's urn of fragrant souchong 
 and smoking-hot seed-cake stood Roger Har- 
 land, cup-and-saucer in hand, talking to Miss 
 Dexter ; who was quietly enjoying her tea 
 with the rest. 
 
 The girl Hannah had followed Naomi with 
 rugs and shawls, and Kate and her party 
 had settled themselves well in the shelter of 
 the wintry hedge. 
 
 Clinging shyly to Miss Dexter's gown, and 
 contentedly munching hot cake meanwhile — 
 for they had already learned to love and to 
 obey the reserved yet tender- voiced girl 
 whom they called their governess — were her 
 two small pupils, Joey and Tommy, as their 
 grandfather at the Mills had facetiously 
 nick-named them ; they having received 
 in baptism the names of Josephine and 
 Thomasina respectively. 
 
 Josephine was five and a half; Thomasina
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 145 
 
 GYer four. They were very good and quiet 
 little maids, indeed remarkably so if com- 
 pared with ordinary children of a similar 
 age. They were always obedient and never 
 quarrelsome; but, as is not unusual with 
 very good and obedient children, they were 
 keenly observant of their elders — of their 
 speech, manners, and peculiarities if any 
 were prominent. So that when these little 
 people did open their lips their innocent re- 
 marks were apt to savour of the observations 
 of the worst enfant terrible. 
 
 " You have had three glasses of port-wine^ 
 grandmamma, and your face is- so red," had 
 said Joey, with the utmost gravity, on the 
 last Sunday at dessert. ^ 
 
 " Nose too," lisped little Tommy, with 
 equal solemnity ; '* all over, grandmamma.'* 
 
 Grandpapa at this had laughed out loud 
 and long, but grandmamma said sharply that 
 i^ Joey and Tommy did not behave better 
 than they were then doing they should never, 
 never come down from the schoolroom to 
 dessert again. In fact, said grandmamma, 
 she had half a mind to send them home that 
 very minute to their own papa and mamma — 
 right across the great deep sea, in which, in 
 all probability, they would both be drowned ; 
 and then they would never come back any 
 
 VOL. I. L
 
 146 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 more to see dear grandpapa and grand- 
 mamma at Borough Mills. 
 
 This outburst awed the little creatures 
 into utter silence, and they spoke no more 
 that day in the presence of their seniors; 
 presently slipping unnoticed from their high 
 chairs and creeping out of the room, wonder- 
 ing in their guileless young souls why grand- 
 mamma should be angry and grandpapa 
 should laugh ? 
 
 " Do you not skate ? " Eoger was inquir- 
 ing of his companion ; adding wistfully, " I 
 have just now plenty of time — the mills 
 can't work in such weather as this — and I 
 should like to teach you. I should be so 
 happy — " 
 
 " It is very kind of you," the governess 
 interrupted, with a smile ; " but I assure 
 you I am tolerably proficient in the art. I 
 learnt two or three winters ago in London, 
 when the Serpentine was frozen. We get 
 capital skating in town sometimes." 
 
 " Then why won't you try now ? " said 
 Eoger, eagerly. " Will you, Miss Dexter ? 
 Take a turn with me — " 
 
 He stopped again, and grew very hot. 
 
 " No," she answered, firmly ; '' I would 
 rather not. You seem to forget, Mr. Har- 
 land, that I am merely the governess with
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 147 
 
 these people here. I could not leave my 
 little charges. What, pray, would the 
 Pringles say ? And both the Miss Pringles 
 are here. Besides, you likewise forget that 
 I have no skates ; I did not bring mine with 
 me." 
 
 *' Why study the Pringle girls ? " said 
 Roger, brusquely. " And as for skates, 
 why, I will go up to Coverley this very 
 evening and get you a pair, if you will but 
 promise — " 
 
 " I can promise you nothing," interrupted 
 Miss Dexter, gently. " I am not my own 
 mistress in this place. Surely you can 
 understand that, Mr. Harland ? " For a 
 moment she looked at him pleadingly with 
 her lovely dark eyes, and the sweet, proud 
 lips seemed touched with pathos. " So you 
 must not be vexed," she added, " nor think 
 that I am ungrateful. You know," smiling a 
 little, " that I look upon you as my best 
 friend amongst all these strange people. 
 How lonely should I feel here if it were not 
 for you and your sister, Mr. Harland ! " 
 
 " I hope so," stammered Roger. " I — I 
 mean, you know, that — that it makes me 
 very happy to think that you regard us as 
 your friends." 
 
 " Have not I good reason to do so ?" said
 
 148 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 the governess earnestly, lier eyes shining, lier 
 voice tremulous. " Believe me, I am not one 
 to forget a noble act — " 
 
 " Ah, don't ! " said Roger, truly uncom- 
 fortable. 
 
 He saw that tears were glistening upon 
 her heavy eyelashes ; he was wretched ; he 
 looked over the field helplessly. It was with 
 intense relief that he heard Miss Dexter 
 saying: 
 
 " Will you take my cup, Mr. Harland ? 
 Joey and Tommy are getting frozen, and we 
 are going to run about for a short while in 
 order to get ourselves warm again before we 
 go indoors. Thank you. Come, dears ! — 
 this will never do. I don't know what 
 grandmamma would say to us if we were 
 all to go home with bad coughs and sore 
 throats ! " 
 
 " She would put us to bed and make us 
 have mustard-plasters on our stomicks," said 
 Joey, looking up seriously. 
 
 " And gregory-powder," added Tommy, in 
 her small, slow, sing-song treble. " Do you 
 like gregory-powder. Miss Dexter ? " 
 
 " Yery much," said the young governess, 
 soberly, "when I know that it will do me 
 good to take it." 
 
 So saying, she grasped a tiny hand in each
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 149 
 
 of her own, and briskly trotted the youngsters 
 off the ice. 
 
 As they passed Kate Harland's group— 
 the urn was almost empty now — Joey said, 
 shrilly : 
 
 " Who are those funny old ladies with 
 Auntie Hetty and Auntie Jill ? Miss Harland 
 is giving them some tea. What big muffs 
 they have ! " 
 
 "And their noses are as red as grand- 
 mamma's," said Tommy. 
 
 " Hush ! — oh, hush, children 1 " said the 
 governess, hurrying them on to the meadow- 
 path, and hoping that Miss Bishop and Miss 
 Eager were occasionally a trifle deaf. " Now, 
 we will run twice from this gate to that one 
 yonder, and then we must go in. See, dears, 
 how the mist is stealing over the river ! " 
 
 Fortunately, the two maiden ladies were 
 engaged in asking the Miss Pringles a variety 
 of questions concerning Miss Dexter herself, 
 and so had not caught the uncomplimentary 
 prattle of Miss Dexter' s infantine charges. 
 
 " She does not look much like a gover- 
 ness," by-and-by remarked Miss Eager. 
 " She is so slight — such a girl — so altogether 
 — so altogether superior-looking, don't you 
 think, Miss Pringle ? " turning to Jill. 
 
 Jill shrugged her shoulders, and did not
 
 150 ' LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 answer. The two maiden ladies from 
 Coverley were Kate Harland's friends — not 
 hers; mere nobodies, in fact, whom it was 
 not worth while to be gracious to. 
 
 " She dresses, in my opinion, a great deal 
 too extravagantly fpr a person in her posi- 
 tion," said Miss Bishop, "Look at that 
 jacket i " 
 
 " Oh, yes," threw in Miss Pringle, lan- 
 guidly — *'I know. That seal she has on 
 to-day is every jot as good as mine. Can't 
 understand it." 
 
 " All her things are simply beautiful,'* 
 cried Hetty, vivaciously ; " and all of them 
 are brand-new into the bargain — marked 
 * M. Dexter,' if you please ! I wonder what 
 her name is ? — Mary Anne, I shouldn't 
 wonder. She looks like a Mary Anne." 
 
 " I presume. Miss Pringle, that you had 
 proper references with the — the young 
 person ? " said Miss Bishop, pursing up her 
 lips virtuously. " One can't be too careful." 
 
 " No, indeed," chimed in Miss Eager. 
 "One can't be too careful in these days, 
 when all sorts of odd and startling tales 
 appear in the newspapers." 
 . " I believe it's all right," replied Jill, in 
 her careless and uncivil way. "She has 
 been living for* several years with a Mrs. De
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 151 
 
 Something in Cumberland Square, who is a 
 kind of rich relative, I should imagine, and 
 who has given her a home for her services. 
 Anyway, mamma managed what little cor- 
 respondence there was in the matter ; and 
 she was perfectly satisfied, for aught I know 
 to the contrary. We didn't care, so long as 
 somebody was found from somewhere to take 
 the responsibility of those little plagues off 
 our hands." 
 
 " Cumberland Square ?" cried Miss Bishop. 
 " Is not that a very aristocratic neighbour- 
 hood ? I am sure I have heard so." 
 
 " I really neither know nor care," said 
 Jill, rudely. 
 
 "Miss Dexter's brother also lives at 17, 
 Cumberland Square," cried Hetty ; " for I 
 have seen the letters she writes to him — and 
 she is always writing to him — with that 
 address on the envelope." 
 
 " Did Miss Dexter herself tell you that it 
 was her brother ? " inquired Kate Harland, 
 coolly. 
 
 " Yes, she did. I asked her only yester- 
 day, and she said that it was — shortly enough, 
 I grant you. I think she's frightfully stuck- 
 up for a governess, and wants taking down a 
 peg. I don't believe she has a brother living 
 in Cumberland Square — 'tisn't likely," said
 
 152 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Hetty, disdainfully. " There's sometliiiig 
 shady about the young woman — that's my 
 conviction. Kate Harland here says she — 
 Miss Dexter — is lovely ! A joke, that, isn't 
 it? Ha, ha, ha!" 
 
 Here Barton Chance, who, with eyes 
 shining with suppressed merriment, had been 
 silently listening to the feminine chatter, 
 scrambled up from the rug upon which he 
 had been lying, and said in a quick, low 
 tone — 
 
 " Kate, you haven't been near me the 
 whole afternoon ! " 
 
 " Whose fault was that ? " said Kate. 
 
 *' Not mine. Kate, you saw very well how 
 it was ! " pleaded Barton. " Won't you take 
 just one turn with me before it gets too 
 dark ? " 
 
 A queer, thin, croaking noise which issued 
 from the throat of Miss Eager made them 
 all start. 
 
 " Gracious, my dear Eachel, your asthma !" 
 almost screamed Miss Bishop. " I shall have 
 you laid up ; we must go home at once ! " 
 
 Whereupon, without ceremony, each lady 
 whipped out from her pocket a soft knitted 
 scarf of coloured wool, and dexterously 
 wound the article not only around her neck 
 and chin, but smothered up nose and all
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 153 
 
 until their eyes alone were visible. Each 
 waved her umbrella and nodded her bonnet 
 in a sort of general farewell ; and then, Miss 
 Bishop hurriedly drawing her house-mate's 
 arm under her own, the two made what haste 
 they could upon the slippery ground in the 
 direction of the town of Coverley. 
 
 " Thank Heaven for her asthma ! " ejacu- 
 lated Barton Chance, as he and Kate 
 together, hand-in-hand, went flying over 
 the surface of the darkening ice. They 
 were alone with each other at last. 
 
 The field had thinned considerably ; people 
 were fast going home; for the sun had set 
 and darkness was coming on with the misty 
 twilight of a winter afternoon. The nipping 
 breeze brought over to the skaters that yet 
 remained the sound of the bells of St. Eve's 
 chiming in their sweet, melancholy fashion 
 for afternoon " mass." It was a quarter to 
 five. 
 
 The curates, remembering their duties — 
 admonished perhaps by the Beverend Sep- 
 timus Haze, or, what was more likely, by the 
 Eeverend Septimus Haze's omnipotent spouse 
 — had wrenched off their skates and gone 
 rushing, with flying coat-tails, homeward to 
 the parish church. In a twinkling, the Miss 
 Bilfilsj the Miss Maltovers, the Miss Single-
 
 154 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 tons, and half-a-dozen more like them, had 
 likewise slipped off their skates, and had 
 vanished precipitately in the wake of the 
 curates. Away went the chase through the 
 wintry gloaming. 
 
 Jill and Hetty Pringle, looking blankly 
 around them, discovered with chagrin that 
 they were deserted by everybody. 
 
 Even by Eoger Harland. Where, then, 
 was he ? 
 
 He had disappeared quietly ten minutes 
 before. 
 
 The Pringle girls saw him now in the dis- 
 tance, by the gate nearest to the mills, hold- 
 ing it open for Miss Dexter and the children 
 to pass through. 
 
 Without difficulty they recognised his tall 
 figure, as he stood there, bareheaded, in the 
 gathering mist, his hand extended to the 
 governess. 
 
 " I cannot allow you to come a step 
 farther," she was saying to him, gravely and 
 firmly. " Please go back." 
 
 " Go back ? '' he repeated slowly. '' Why ?" 
 
 " The Miss Pringles are alone. You must 
 go back to them." 
 
 " I have taken off my skates," said Roger^ 
 
 " They are * acme,' " said the governess 
 with a smile. " You can easily put them on 
 again."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 155 
 
 " I have no wish to put them on again," 
 replied Harlan d, quietly. 
 
 " You will make it pleasanter for me, Mr. 
 Harland," remarked the governess, with a 
 kind of proud simplicity, " if you go back. 
 Do not you comprehend ? " 
 
 " Ah ! " said Eoger quickly. He did com- 
 prehend. 
 
 "Goodbye," then said Miss Dexter. "I 
 shall come to see your sister soon — perhaps 
 very soon." 
 
 " Thank you — do," replied the young man, 
 earnestly. " You are always welcome — no 
 one on earth more so with Kate and me.'*" 
 
 " I must say ' Thank you ' now ; for I know 
 that I can believe what you say." 
 
 She hurried on with her wee friends, and 
 left him standing by the gate alone. 
 
 Eoger gazed after her for a minute or so ; 
 and, without knowing it, drew a deep sigh. 
 
 Then he went slowly back to Jill and Hetty 
 Pringle.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 It wanted but three days to Christmas Day. 
 
 The promise of a long-lasting frost had, 
 after all, not held out, and dull and cloudy 
 weather, with a south-westerly wind, having 
 once more set in, the ice all over the country 
 was rapidly disappearing, and any business 
 of life with which Jack Frost may have 
 temporarily interfered was again in a fair 
 way to proceed as usual. 
 
 The floods in the neighbourhood of Cover- 
 ley-on-Dane were sinking ; the grass of the 
 surrounding meadows, pinched and sodden 
 from frost and immersion, was showing itself 
 more distinctly with each passing day. The 
 skaters grumbled ; hunting men rejoiced ; 
 the poor were especially thankful for the 
 kindly change, for the poor ones of the earth 
 are the world's keenest sufferers at all times 
 and seasons of the year. 
 
 Everybody, at any rate, was of course 
 agreed on one point — namely, that he were
 
 LIKE L03T SHEEP. 167 
 
 a shrewd and a wise man wlio should satisfac- 
 torily account for the vagaries of the English 
 climate. 
 
 The evening was still and mild. A pallid 
 moon on her back was just visible in the 
 rainy gray of the sky. The wide river, 
 mirroring the dark woods, the tambling weir, 
 the rushing mill-tails — all gleamed with a 
 ghostly fitfulness beneath the feeble moon's 
 wan smile. 
 
 Sir G-arth Gilroy on that evening was 
 dining alone with the Pringles. Indeed, it 
 was always en famille^ and never with other 
 company, that Sir Garth had ever dined with 
 the Pringle family. 
 
 He preferred such an arrangement, he 
 coolly informed the master of the house — 
 which, said the wealthy Solomon, was for- 
 tunate, since as yet they knew nobody in 
 their miscellaneous assortment of friends and 
 acquaintances that was " good enough " to be 
 asked to meet Sir Garth. 
 
 No insulting observation from the illus- 
 trious guest had ever yet given offence to 
 Solomon Pringle ; simply because Solomon 
 would not be offended. 
 
 So Sir Garth Gilroy being absent from the 
 Moat, and there being no hindrance in the 
 way of accounts to go over, Barton Chance
 
 158 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 — ascertaining that the towing-path of the 
 Woldney meadows was tolerably high and 
 dry — put on his cloth-hat and light cover- 
 coat, and set out for the Harlands' house. He 
 had got a new song and the new Christmas 
 number of a popular magazine for Kate to 
 look at ; so off went Barton to the Little 
 Mills. 
 
 The song and the magazine would amuse 
 her — Kate— said Chance to himself, whilst he 
 and Harland strolled up to Coverley for a 
 pipe and a game of billiards at " The Gig." 
 
 As Barton Chance passed the lock-keeper's 
 cottage, he saw a light in a lower window 
 falling ruddily out on the garden gloom. 
 The curtain was drawn only partly across 
 the lattice; the small, lit interior was dis- 
 tinctly visible. 
 
 Old Adam sat by the fire, a large book — it 
 looked like a Bible — spread upon his knee ; 
 whilst kneeling there by his side, her hand 
 upon the open page as if reading aloud, was 
 the beautiful young governess from Borough 
 Mills. 
 
 " Miss Dexter, by Jove!" muttered Barton. 
 
 The candlelight flickered upon the old 
 man's shaggy white hair, and played round 
 the bent dark head of the kneeling girl. 
 
 Barton, astonished, stared for a few
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 159 
 
 seconds at the picture; then resumed 
 his leisurely walk across the bridge. As 
 he turned his back on the Lock cottage he 
 heard Adam's cuckoo-clock strike seven. 
 Barton quickened his pace. 
 
 " Queer," he said aloud. '' Almost as 
 queer as what I saw the other night — if I 
 did see it/' he added, a smile, half thought- 
 ful, half careless, stealing over his handsome 
 fair face. He tapped at the dining-room win- 
 dow of the Harlands' house ; and Roger, 
 knowing the familiar signal, threw aside his 
 newspaper and, pipe in mouth, went to let 
 Barton in. 
 
 He sat down by the clean-swept hearth, 
 and Kate offering him a spill, the young 
 fellow followed his friend Roger s example 
 and fell a-puffing at his pipe. 
 
 He told them presently, having duly pre- 
 sented his song and Christmas number, what 
 he had seen at the Lock cottage, and asked 
 Roger whether he did not consider the cir- 
 cumstance a rather singular one. 
 
 '' She seems to make a strange fuss with 
 that old chap,*' said Barton. " As Hetty 
 Pringle says, I am half inclined to believe that 
 there is something ' shady ' about Miss — " 
 
 " What foliy you talk occasionally. Bar- 
 ton," Kate interrupted, with some asperity.
 
 160 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Eoger was silent, frowning; and stared 
 into the fire. He hated the idea of there 
 being any shred of mystery in connection 
 with the life of this girl whom he had known 
 so short a time, concerning whose ante- 
 cedents, in fact, he knew absolutely nothing ; 
 and yet who, notwithstanding, in those few 
 short weeks, had gone near to robbing him 
 of his entire peace of mind. 
 
 He had got to think of her both by night 
 and by day ; he could not help himself in 
 his bondage ; her sweet, proud face, with its 
 pathetic eyes, haunted him both in his busi- 
 ness and out of it. Somehow he felt angry 
 with Barton for his outspokenness ; and 
 Kate, perceiving that Roger was annoyed, 
 persuaded herself that she was angry with 
 Barton too. 
 
 "Do not you see how ifc is?*' continued 
 she, her slipper tapping her footstool, her 
 darning-needle glancing fast about the heel 
 of a coarse gray worsted sock of Roger's. 
 " The Pringle people are at dinner ; and 
 Miss Dexter— " 
 
 " Not being esteemed, perhaps, worthy to 
 meet Sir Garth Gilroy," threw in Barton, 
 nodding — " Yes ? " 
 
 Roger growled; and with a rough hand 
 seized the tobacco-jar at his elbow to refill 
 his favourite briar.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 161 
 
 " Yes ; not being, as you put it, Barton, 
 esteemed worthy to meet Sir Garth — if the 
 man is there," said Kate, laughing now, 
 " Miss Dexter has charitably, knowing that 
 at this hour she will be neither missed nor 
 wanted, gone to old Adam's cottage to read 
 to him for a little while. What more 
 natural ? — remembering all that happened 
 on the night of her arrival here ; recollecting, 
 too, how interested Miss Dexter has become 
 in the old man and what a strong fancy he 
 has taken to her. I see nothing odd in it. 
 Barton." 
 
 " She was kneeling by his chair," rumi- 
 nated Chance. " That, surely, was an 
 extraordinary familiarity on her part. Wo ; 
 they wouldn't believe me if I were to tell 
 them what I saw — what I am almost positive 
 that I did see — the other night at Woldney 
 Moat. So ril keep it to myself — perhaps it 
 will happen again. 'No; I won't tell them. 
 Better not." Aloud : '' The old chap 
 declares — doesn't he ? — that this Miss 
 Dexter resembles a daughter he lost years 
 ago ; a daughter who ran away from home 
 and never came back to him ? Mrs. James 
 at the Moat once told me something of the 
 tale — or tried to, and got frightfully mixed — 
 but I have forgotten her rigmarole. It was 
 
 VOL. I. M
 
 162 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 a very gin-and-watery one," laughed Barton ; 
 '* I do remember that." 
 
 " Ah, yes ; but Adam is not to be trusted. 
 When mind and memory fail them, old people 
 sometimes take uncommonly queer notions 
 into their heads," answered Kate, darning 
 away industriously. 
 
 " Miss Dexter, at any rate, doesn't seem to 
 much mind the old fellow's flights of fancy," 
 remarked Barton. " On the contrary, she 
 appears to take a Christian delight in 
 humouring them." 
 
 " I really believe she does," said Kate. 
 *' She goes away, you know, to-morrow for a 
 short Christmas holiday ; but will return, so 
 says Hetty Pringle, early in January, so as 
 to be able to help them in their preparations 
 for their New Year ball." 
 
 " You will go as usual, I suppose ? " 
 inquired Barton, lazily. 
 
 '* Oh, I suppose so ! " replied Kate, with a 
 little impatient sigh. 
 
 Presently Chance said — 
 
 " By-the-bye, what was the name of 
 Adam's runaway child ? That slipshod old 
 soul at the Moat did tell me, Kate ; but, as 
 I say, I have forgotten. Wasn't it something 
 fantastic — not to say smacking of paganism? " 
 
 " I don't know about paganism," replied
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 163 
 
 Kate Harland, slowly. " It certainly was 
 Dot an ordinary name. But then, you see. 
 Barton — thereby hangs a tale." 
 
 Bump, bump, bump at the dining-room 
 door ; and enter Naomi. 
 
 " Mr. Roger, my Dan'l wants a word with 
 you. It's about that last load of Packhouse 
 corn that came in this afternoon, he said I 
 was to tell you." 
 
 " All right," said Roger, rising and 
 clapping on his millers cap which, on 
 coming into tea, he had tossed on to a 
 bracket in the alcove by the fireplace ; '' I'll 
 come out to him." 
 
 Exit Naomi by the door at which she had 
 appeared, and Roger through that smaller 
 and inner room — his own particular den— 
 which communicated with the lobby that led 
 to the kitchen regions. 
 
 " Was it Minerva — Morgiana — or what ?** 
 said Barton Chance, helping himself to 
 Rogers brown jar of " Virginia " and 
 taking up the conversational thread which 
 Naomi and her message had momentarily 
 broken. " It was something outlandish, I 
 know, Kate." 
 
 " What ? " said she. " Oh, you mean the 
 name of Adam Eord's daughter ! Let me 
 see. I dare say you are aware, are you not ? '*
 
 164 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 contiimed Kate, narratively, " tbat years ago 
 tlie present owner of Woldney Moat — your 
 precious Sir Garth, Barton — or, perhaps, I 
 ought to say his branch of the family, no 
 more dreamed that one of its members would 
 eventually succeed to the Woldney estate, 
 than — than — " said she, casting about for 
 an aj)ro]oos idea, " than — " 
 
 "Than I am dreaming at the present 
 moment of one day becoming Lord Mayor 
 of London," supplied the ready Barton. 
 "Yes; that much I have heard." 
 
 '* Ah, thanks," said Kate, looking up at 
 him with a quick smile — " that will do 
 exactly." 
 
 "But this has nothing to do with old 
 Adam Ford and his daughter," Barton said. 
 
 " I'm coming to it. I am a woman, sir, 
 remember, and you must allow me to tell my 
 little story in my own way, else I can't tell it 
 at all." 
 
 "So!'' said the young man. And he let 
 his yellow pate sink back upon the cushion 
 of his arm-chair, and slowly puffed out 
 gossamer rings from the cherished meers- 
 chaum between his lips. " Kate, I'm all 
 attention.'* 
 
 " No," she repeated, emphatically ; " the 
 Garth Gilroy branch — in days gone by — I
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 165 
 
 have heard my parents say, no more dreamed 
 that one of them would one day become Sir 
 Garth Gilroy, of Woldney Moat and Lone- 
 field Grange, than you, Barton, according to 
 your own suggestion, are dreaming at this 
 moment of Mansion House honours and 
 turtle -soup." 
 
 " Ah, but the dream may come in time ! " 
 murmured the young man, partly closing his 
 eyes. '' Who knows ? " 
 
 " You will have to rouse yourself some- 
 what, Barton, and work a trifle harder than 
 you are now doing if the dream is to meet 
 with a substantial ending," observed prac- 
 tical Kate, drily. 
 
 " Kate — spare me ! I know I am mon- 
 strously idle. But the truth . is not always 
 palatable — and — and how about Morgiana ?" 
 
 " Morgiana ? Nonsense ! If you inter- 
 rupt me again, I declare I won't tell you 
 another word." , 
 
 Barton looked pathetic. 
 
 " I am dumb," said he. 
 
 So Kate, threading her big needle afresh, 
 continued : 
 
 *' Well, you must know, it was in this 
 wise. Sir Garth's predecessor was Sir Jasper 
 Gilroy, there being, at one time, between 
 the former and his chance of succession
 
 166 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 as many as three or four vigorous lives ; and 
 yet within the space of a few years these 
 same healthy lives, either in one fatal direc- 
 tion or another, were swept from his path, 
 so that Garth Gilroy became heir to the Moat 
 and the Grange. Lonefield Grange, I believe, 
 is somewhere in Warwickshire. 
 
 '' Sir Jasper and his wife were a notoriously 
 unhappy couple — a childless couple; were 
 badly matched, I suspect, in every sense of the 
 term. I am not certain that he actually ill- 
 treated her ; he simply killed her with unkind- 
 ness and neglect. He used to leave her for 
 
 months at a stretch — nay, years sometimes 
 — pining in solitude at Woldney Moat, whilst 
 he would be roaming all over the globe in 
 search of the excitement and adventure 
 which were, he said, necessary to his exis- 
 tence. 
 
 " Rumour whispered that Lady Gilroy was 
 not a good woman ; if she was not good, I 
 maintain that the fault was her husband's — 
 not hers.'' 
 
 " Of course," said Barton, meekly. 
 
 '' Adam Ford, as a young man," went on 
 Kate, smiling a little at the interpolation, 
 " filled the post of valet to Sir Jasper Gilroy, 
 and more than once had accompanied his 
 master in his wanderings in distant lands.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 167 
 
 "It was in the wild territory of the Far 
 West that master and man quarrelled and 
 parted company. It came about in this 
 fashion. 
 
 '' Sir Jasper and one or two more like 
 him — for I never will believe that good men 
 herd with bad — were bear-shooting in the 
 neighbourhood of the Rockies. Adam, as Sir 
 Jasper s servant, was travelling with them. 
 Lady Gilroy, at home as usual, was shut up 
 at Woldney Moat. 
 
 " It happened that, whilst sojourning in 
 these wild western regions of North America, 
 the wanderers from Woldney found them- 
 selves ' in the land of the Dacotahs, in the 
 land of handsome women,' as Longfellow has 
 it in 'Hiawatha.' You remember. Barton; 
 you are fond of poetry ? " 
 
 '' Yes, I remember," said Barton. '' Go 
 on, Kate ; you don't tell a story badly when 
 once you have warmed to your work." 
 
 '' Thank you. Well, Adam Ford, it would 
 chance sometimes, had not much to occupy 
 his time out there ; Sir Jasper and his friends 
 not infrequently going off into the mountains 
 or the forests upon their sporting expeditions 
 and remaining away for a fortnight or more. 
 Adam, left to himself, and with nothing par- 
 ticular to do, naturally got into mischief."
 
 168 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " GJiercJiez lafemme ! " laughed Barton. 
 
 " Exactly," said Kate, nodding sagely. 
 
 *' Cest V amour ^ V amour ^ V amour qui fait le 
 monde go round ! " 
 
 " Do be quiet. So it came to pass that he 
 — Adam — during a longer spell of absence 
 than usual on the part of Sir Jasper, managed 
 to get acquainted with a party of English 
 emigrants who had moved up from Wyoming 
 to settle in Dacotah. Of this party there was 
 a pretty orphan girl, very young and very 
 delicate, with whom Adam Ford thought fit 
 to fall desperately in love. The long and the 
 short of it was, he persuaded her to marry 
 him off-hand, then and there — they would 
 risk the consequences together. 
 
 " The result of their folly was that Sir 
 Jasper, coming back to make preparations 
 for an immediate return to England, learned 
 what had happened, and dismissed poor Adam 
 on the spot. 
 
 " The master accordingly returned to Eng- 
 land ; the man remained behind with his wife. 
 
 " It was the best thing that Adam could do, 
 the emigrants assured him — to throw in his 
 lot with theirs, and to take his chance with 
 them, now that his imprudent marriage had 
 made him one of themselves. 
 
 " At the end of a twelvemonth Adam Ford's
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 169 
 
 little daughter was born, and the child's coming 
 into the world cost the hapless young wife 
 her life. Her melancholy story, by some 
 means or other, reached the ears of a cer- 
 tain intrepid Englishwoman and celebrated 
 authoress — I can't at this instant remember 
 her name ; I dare say both herself and her 
 books are forgotten by this time — who just 
 then chanced to be passing through the valley 
 which the Wyoming emigrants had made their 
 own. This brave lady came immediately to 
 the bedside of her countrywoman, but per- 
 ceived at once that there was no hope for the 
 poor young thing. She died at sunset on t?he 
 day of her illness, and the infant being ex- 
 tremely weakly, they baptised it without delay 
 by the bedside of its dead mother. 
 
 " ' Call it " Minnehaha," said the authoress, 
 who assumed the office of godmother. ' It's 
 mother, poor soul, was very sweet and fair, I 
 can see, and it has come into the world in the 
 *' land of handsome women." Call it Minne- 
 haha.' 
 
 "So the authoress had her way in the 
 matter — Adam himself was too dazed and 
 grief- stricken to care or to interfere — her 
 whim of the hour was gratified, and Adam's 
 baby, which lived and thrived after all, wa& 
 christened Minnehaha.
 
 170 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 " The story was afterwards given to the 
 world in her new book of travels, upon the 
 compilation of which this female explorer was 
 then engaged : entitled, On a Mule through 
 Dacotah, Wyoming, and Utah, and the Regions 
 beyond the Rockies ; and the volumes are to be 
 found, I believe, with, of course, the writer's 
 name upon the title-page, in the library at 
 Woldney Moat." 
 
 Kate paused, threw aside her sock, and 
 folded her hands in her lap. Barton Chance 
 sat upright in his chair. 
 
 " There," said she to him, " that is the 
 tale as I. heard it from my own mother's lips." 
 
 "But afterwards," said Barton — '' after- 
 wards ! Surely there's more to come ? I am 
 impatient for the sequel." 
 
 " Are you so interested ? Well, there's not 
 much more to relate. About three years after- 
 wards, I think it was, broken in health and 
 spirits, gaunt, travel-stained, and carrying a 
 little child upon his shoulder and a bundle 
 upon his arm, Adam Ford one day appeared 
 at Woldney Moat. 
 
 " He had had enough of a hard life and 
 toil in the 'free Far West,' and had come 
 home, bringing his little daughter with him, 
 to beg forgiveness and help of the master 
 who had turned him adrift. Sir Jasper's
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 171 
 
 anger had had time to cool ; and, as lie could 
 not very well take both Adam and the child 
 into the house, for the sake of his servant's 
 faithful service in the past he managed to 
 procure for him employment elsewhere. Sir 
 Jasper Gilroy, you see, if he was a bad 
 husband, was a not altogether bad master. 
 The post of Borough Lock-keeper had lately 
 fallen vacant, and Sir Jasper did the best in 
 his power to obtain the Lock cottage for Adam 
 Ford. Having considerable influence with the 
 Dane Conservancy authorities, Sir Jasper 
 Gilroy succeeded in his aim. And so at the 
 Lock cottage Adam, with his little girl, took 
 up his abode. He loved the child devotedly ; 
 she was simply all the world to the lonely 
 man. Nothing, I have heard, was too good, 
 if he could afford it, for this child of his — his 
 little Minna. 
 
 '' With assistance, I believe, from Sir 
 Jasper, he placed her at a respectable school 
 in C overlay ; so that the girl received, in 
 many ways, a better education than falls to 
 the lot of most children of her position in 
 life. 
 
 " She grew up to be a tall, fine, healthy 
 young woman — though my father used to 
 say, when he told the story to anyone, that 
 she was not so strong as she looked — and
 
 172 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 the handsomest, too, many people thought, 
 to be met with for miles round here. 
 
 " She used frequently herself to let the 
 boats through the Lock in the summer-time, 
 winding back the great gates as easily as her 
 own father could do, when strangers never 
 failed to remark upon the beauty of Minna 
 Ford. 
 
 " Then, too, she had a skiff of her own in 
 which, alone, she used to scull herself for 
 any distance upon the river, either up or 
 down stream as the fancy seized her. Some- 
 times she would be from home the whole day 
 long. Adam denied her nothing. He was 
 absolutely wrapped up in Minna. It is diffi- 
 cult to convey to you, Barton, an idea of how 
 dearly he loved his girl. 
 
 " Thus father and daughter together lived 
 contentedly at the Lock, until — until — 
 Barton, I do not think I need try your 
 patience any longer," Kate here quietly broke 
 off ; " you must know the sequel as well as 
 L" 
 
 " Yes," replied he slowly, tapping out his 
 tobacco-ash, as he spoke, upon the trivet 
 of the grate — " it is not difficult to guess. 
 But did old Adam never discover the name 
 and condition of the man who robbed him of 
 his daughter and broke his heart ? It is 
 strange/' mused Barton — " very strange."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 173 
 
 " It is," agreed Kate. " It is both strange 
 and true that Adam has never discovered the 
 name of the man. Minna Ford, you see, left 
 her home in the spring of the year; and 
 people have always thought — as indeed did 
 her own father at the date of her disappear- 
 ance — that she joined someone, some 
 stranger, some artist perhaps, whom she had 
 met about the river during the previous 
 summer. Coverley had been very full of 
 visitors in that past season — unusually so; 
 the Eaces, as you know. Barton, bring crowds 
 to the place from all parts, and of all sorts 
 and conditions as well; and Minna Ford's 
 good looks, her curious name, and, above all, 
 her romantic history, had made her quite a 
 local celebrity. 
 
 " After her flight, her father recollected 
 that for some months past she had been in 
 the habit of receiving letters addressed to her 
 at the Lock in a handwriting wholly unknown 
 to him. But I suppose he loved her too 
 well eitlier to doubt her or to interfere with 
 her whims in any way, as a wise mother — 
 had she been blest with one — would in all 
 probability have sometimes done. 
 
 " Adam Ford, you know. Barton," con- 
 cluded Kate Harland, not without a shudder, 
 "has always sworn — then, when the blow 
 fell upon him, as indeed ever since that day
 
 174 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 — that, if ever in this world he should find 
 the man who wronged him, he would kill him 
 as he would kill a dog that had bitten him." 
 
 " Quite right ! " said Barton, lightly. 
 '^ Bravo, Adam ! " 
 
 '' No, no, no ! " answered Kate, emphati- 
 cally. "You are wrong, Barton. Ven- 
 geance is not for man. Rest assured that 
 the — that the person, whoever he was, that 
 wrought such misery upon that happy. little 
 home across the water yonder, will — if, that 
 is, he has not already met with it — some day 
 meet with his just reward. Still, Minna Ford 
 is dead, and perhaps he is too." 
 
 " And what did Sir Jasper and Lady 
 Gilroy say to it all?" Barton inquired. 
 
 " You forget. Sir Garth in those days was 
 in possession of the Woldney property. Sir 
 Jasper and his unhappy wife had died some 
 years before." 
 
 " Ah, so ! " said Chance — *' I see. And 
 Sir Garth— " 
 
 " Oh, Sir Garth, for a wonder," replied 
 Kate, as she rose and got from the sideboard 
 a stone bottle of water and a decanter of 
 whiskey of the kind with which, when they 
 were together, her brother and Barton 
 Chance were accustomed to mingle their 
 evening tobacco — "Sir Garth, I say, was
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 175 
 
 remarkably kind. He actually wrote to 
 Adam Ford, from his other place in War- 
 wickshire — Lonefield Grange — where, it ap- 
 peared, he was passing that summer, and 
 expressed his sympathy with his family's old 
 servant in the sad domestic trouble which 
 had befallen him ; the affair having come to 
 his knowledge quite by accident, added Sir 
 Garth in a postscript. My father used 
 grimly to say that it was about the only 
 kind action Sir Garth Gilroy ever performed 
 in his life." 
 
 " Don't doubt it," was Barton's airy com- 
 ment, as he leisurely mixed his cold grog and 
 again refilled that everlasting meerschaum 
 of his. *' Lonefield Grange doesn't see much 
 of him now-a-days, does it ?" 
 
 " One never hears that it does," said Kate. 
 " The place, I've been told, is a dreadful old 
 barrack, given up pretty much to the bats 
 and the owls — and ghosts perhaps — and is 
 looked after by some purblind old creature 
 who was its housekeeper in happier times. 
 I daresay the house is something like the 
 ' Moated Grange,' with ' blackest moss ' 
 thickly crusting the roof and walls, and with 
 strange, uncanny noises at midnight sounding 
 through the empty rooms." 
 
 *' It can't very well be worse than Woldney
 
 176 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Moat," observed Chance, in a lugubrious 
 tone. " Why, the other night, Kate, I woke 
 up to hear the wind crying and moaning 
 round and rattling my windows, and to find 
 the rain splashing down in great drops upon 
 my face from an inch-wide crack in the ceiling ; 
 and old Mrs. James, when she's half-seas 
 
 over, says Hullo, Roger ! " cried Barton, 
 
 as Harland entered through the inner room 
 from his confabulation with Dan'l Drake 
 touching the last load of the Packhouse corn 
 — ** done for to-night ? If so," springing up 
 from his seat, "we'll stroll Coverley-ward, 
 old fellow, and see how the world wags 
 there." 
 
 '' I've no objection," said Hoger, who 
 enjoyed a walk and a chat with his friend 
 when the work of the day was over. Be- 
 sides, when that friend went o' nights to 
 Coverley, alone, he invariably got into 
 trouble — " I've no objection if Kate doesn't 
 mind." 
 
 The colour had deepened in Kate Harland's 
 face ; then, fading out, had left her rather 
 pale. 
 
 " Is it not too late to go ? " said she, 
 quietly, perhaps a little wistfully. " Let us 
 light the candles in the drawing-room, 
 Barton, and try over the song you brought
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 177 
 
 this evening. I don't think we shall find the 
 room too chilly ? " 
 
 " Oh, the song can wait, like the girl in the 
 song, don't you know ! " cried Chance, in 
 his gay, light-hearted fashion, pulling out his 
 watch. " It is only just upon the stroke of 
 eight. We shall be back by ten o'clock, and 
 can try over the song then, Kate. Sir 
 Garth, you may be sure, won't be at "Woldney 
 this side of midnight ; old Pringie will take 
 good care of that." 
 
 " Hang old Pringie and the whole brood !" 
 muttered Roger from the interior of his own 
 domain, whither he had withdrawn to put on 
 his hat and coat and to brush the flour 
 from his trousers. 
 
 " Roger," called out Chance, " Kate has 
 been telling me the story of Minnehaha, the 
 lock-keeper's daughter — never rightly heard 
 it before — and somehow it recalls, not alto- 
 gether agreeably perhaps, the memory of 
 my earliest school-days, when a certain 
 good old dame, with blear eyes and 
 spectacles on nose, used to hear me recite,, 
 on every Saturday morning, a page of 
 Hiawatha, ' Should you ask me, whence 
 these stories ? Whence these legends and 
 traditions,' etcsetera, etcsetera, don't you 
 know ? The only lines that I can distinctly 
 
 VOL. I. N
 
 178 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 remember now, after the lapse of many years 
 — ah, me ! Kate, it seems, on looking back 
 from to-day, centuries instead of years — 
 are : 
 
 ' Once a warrior, very angry 
 Seized his grandmother, and threw her 
 Up into the sky at midnight ; 
 Eight against the moon he threw her ; 
 'Tis her body that you see there.' 
 
 I never forgot those lines; chiefly, I suspect, 
 on account of that good old woman being a 
 trifle too free with an ebony ruler which, if 
 occasion warranted it, she kept up her 
 sleeve. In impotent fits of childish rage, I 
 simply panted sometimes to serve her as the 
 Indian warrior served his grandmother." 
 
 So chatting on, and laughing as he talked, 
 Barton tossed off the grog that remained in 
 his glass ; and Roger, reappearing at that 
 moment, brewed, in response to a smile half 
 pleading, half comically-inquiring from the 
 younger man, a fresh supply of the good 
 liquor he perchance loved too well. 
 
 A strange gravity had settled upon the 
 features of Kate Harland ; though, in spite 
 of herself, she had laughed with Barton 
 himself at the ridiculous picture he had 
 called up of his early and ''petticoat days." 
 
 " Come — come, old chap, aren't you 
 ready ? " presently exclaimed Roger — " that 
 is, if you mean coming at all ! "
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 179 
 
 So the two youDg men bade " good-night " 
 to Kate "for the present," as they told her 
 — Chance, his beautiful dark-blue eyes full 
 of gaiety and tenderness, as he looked into 
 her own and folded his two hands caressingly 
 over the one she gave him when he said au 
 revoiT — and left her to spend her evening 
 alone. Well, she was not altogether un- 
 accustomed to the situation, and she was 
 not the kind of girl to feel dull when cast 
 upon her own resources. Perhaps she was 
 thinking insensibly that all men were alike 
 ^ — masterful and selfish in their lives and 
 pleasures. 
 
 A sigh escaped her. 
 
 She stirred up the fire; then put back 
 whence she had taken them the spirit- 
 decanter and the homely old earthenware 
 pitcher of water. Then coming back to the 
 fireside, she took up from the table the new 
 song which Barton that evening had brought 
 over from the Moat. For the first time she 
 saw that it was called " Love and Life." 
 Opening it, she read — 
 
 " Though T may breathe no word, dear love, 
 Yet do I love thee more dearly than life ; 
 Through storm and calm, through shower and shine, 
 Through life's unrest and through life's long strife, 
 I am thine, dear love, I am thine ! 
 Trust me, dear one, in Love, 
 Trust me, dear heart, in Life ! " 
 
 The song slipped from her lap to the
 
 180 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 heartli-rug, and Kate's head drooped until it 
 rested upon her clasped hands. 
 
 " Barton — dear love — Barton," she mur- 
 mured, " if you only knew ! If you only really 
 cared for me ! But you cannot, you do not 
 or you would be more willing to — ah, kind 
 Heaven!" she broke off reverently, ''be 
 merciful. Deliver him from the curse of — '* 
 
 Hark ! Was that the click of the garden- 
 gate ? Unmistakably. Then a swift light 
 footstep sounded upon the gravel path, 
 followed, as the footsteps halted, by a gentle 
 knock at the front door. 
 
 Kate Harland flung off in an instant, as it 
 were, the sentimental mood to which she had 
 been more than half inclined to give free in- 
 dulgence in her solitude, and, divining who 
 her late visitor was, went directly to the hall 
 door. 
 
 " You needn't trouble," she said to the 
 girl Hannah, whom she met coming from the 
 kitchen — " I will go. 
 
 jj 
 
 On the doorstep stood Miss Dexter, 
 wrapped in her long fur cloak, the silken 
 hood of which was drawn close over her hair. 
 Her face, in its dark setting, looked white, 
 proud, lovely as ever. Her manner was 
 almost nervous, agitated, 
 
 "I cannot indeed come in," she said.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 181 
 
 hastily, in response to Kate's pressing re- 
 quest that she should do so. ''I merely 
 came to say good-bye ; I guessed that I 
 should find you alone. You know I am 
 going home to-morrow for a few days, and-^ 
 and I have been to see and to say good-bye 
 to my — my old friend at the Lock." Kate 
 did not remark that she already knew this. 
 " And I thought," said Miss Dexter, " that 
 it would not take a moment to run across 
 the bridge and speak to you. You have been 
 so very kind to me during my short stay here." 
 
 " I do not understand you, and I do not 
 mean to try," answered Kate, lightly. 
 *' Come in — do come in. I have told you 
 that I am all alone. My brother and his 
 friend Mr. Chance are gone to Coverley." 
 
 " I cannot — believe me," the other re- 
 turned, speaking as if with difficulty. " I 
 have promised to — to be in the drawing- 
 room at the Mills to-night by nine o'clock. 
 Sir Garth Gilroy— " 
 
 Miss Dexter stopped. She leant as if 
 weary against a pillar of the door ; and her 
 hands beneath her cloak, could Kate have 
 seen, were locked convulsively together. 
 
 " You have hurried too much, walked too 
 fast," cried Kate, all sympathy and solicitude. 
 *' Let me get you — ''
 
 182 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 *' No, no," interrupted the governess, with 
 a forced, faint smile. " I assure you I am 
 quite well. I was about to explain to you,'* 
 she continued, the words coming rapidly 
 enough now, " that I have told the Pringles 
 I will present myself without fail in the 
 drawing-room at nine o'clock this evening, 
 because — because Mrs. Pringle has promised 
 to introduce me to Sir Garth Gilroy, who is 
 dining there to-night. It is an honour, they 
 give me to understand," cried the governess, 
 with a sudden scornful light in her soft, proud 
 eyes, " that one should not lose, Miss Har- 
 land, for the world ! I don't suppose that 
 you or anybody in my place would be insen- 
 sible to so magnificent a favour. You per- 
 ceive why I must hasten back.'' 
 
 "I never have in my life exchanged a word 
 with Sir Grarth, and I do not know, I am not 
 at all sure, that I should care to either," re- 
 plied Kate Harland, simply ; vaguely bewil- 
 dered perhaps at the disdain perceptible in 
 Miss Dexter' s mode of speech over so trivial 
 a matter as an impending introduction to 
 Sir Garth Gilroy. 
 
 " Good-night — good-bye! " said the gover- 
 ness, abruptly, gathering the folds of her 
 cloak more closely around her. " Please 
 — please remember me to Mr. Harland ;
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 183 
 
 thougli I hope to meet you again very 
 shortly. I imagine that both you and he 
 will be present at the Pringles' ball?" 
 
 " Yes ; if nothing prevents us. We 
 generally go; though I do not think that 
 we either of us particularly care about the 
 affair. Roger, however, says it is neigh- 
 bourly to go, and consequently, as a rule, 
 we accept the invitation." 
 
 " It is then, I suppose, an annual event ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes ! — at least of recent years it has 
 been so ; ever since the girls left school, you 
 know." 
 
 " They are rejoicing," said Miss Dexter, 
 her hand upon the garden-gate, " because 
 this year Sir Garth Gilroy has consented to 
 grace the festival. What trifling ambitions 
 will satisfy some people in this queer old 
 world of ours. Miss Harland ! '' 
 
 "I am inclined to think that you are right," 
 replied Kate, with a short laugh. Then with. 
 a few quick steps she quitted the lamp-lit 
 doorway and joined the governess at the 
 garden-gate. 
 
 The night was still mild and fretful-look- 
 ing ; the sick moon still lay on her back in 
 the fleecy gray of the sky. The river, broad 
 and flood-swollen, its cold black bosom catch- 
 ing now and then the quivering white beams
 
 184 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 from heaven's wan lantern overhead, rolled 
 heavily, moaninglj onward ; suggestive of 
 horrible depths, weedy and unfathomable, 
 beneath the darkling ripples of its shimmer- 
 ing tide. The cool splash of the mill-tail 
 outside, the dulled throb and jar of the 
 grinding within the mill, smote refreshingly 
 upon the silence of the warm gray night. 
 Kate laid her hand upon the governess's 
 
 arm. 
 
 ''Am I always to be ' Miss Harland ' r " 
 she gently said. " Will you not try to call 
 me 'Kate'?" 
 
 Miss Dexter clasped the hand which lay 
 upon her arm, and, carrying it impetuously 
 to her lips, kissed it. 
 
 " If I may I will call you Kate," she 
 murmured ; " I believe I have often longed 
 to call you Kate. You are so sweet and 
 kind." 
 
 " Please, do then," replied Kate, heartily. 
 And she kissed Miss Dexter's forehead ; feel- 
 ing somehow, on the strength of her few 
 years' seniority, altogether a great deal older 
 and wiser than the young girl before her. 
 " And you," she added, playfully — " may I 
 call you — ah, what ? " 
 
 But the governess was gone; her slender 
 shape in its long dark cloak and hood was
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 185 
 
 dimly visible as she hastened across the 
 bridge ; the wan white moonlight touching 
 her fitfully as she went. 
 
 Kate Harland, standing thoughtfully alone 
 there at the gate, strained her eyes in follow- 
 ing that swift- flitting form, until thick 
 shadows from the Lock cottage and garden 
 closed round it and it disappeared.
 
 CHAPTER YIII. 
 
 " Heee, Barton, take my arm — look out, old 
 man ! " said Roger Harland, grimly. " If I 
 had guessed how the case was going with 
 you, my friend, you should have come out of 
 this an hour ago. I had not the ghost of a 
 notion it was half as late as it is." 
 
 The truth of the matter being that Roger, 
 discussing certain business affairs with young 
 Penfold of Packhouse, whom they had found 
 in the smoking-room at '' The Grig," had 
 forgotten Barton and the flight of time. 
 And Chance, left to his own devices — Har- 
 land' s back being turned — and meeting in 
 the place with more than one kindred spirit 
 with whom he acknowledged a chatting ac- 
 quaintance, had amused himself after his own 
 humour, which had certainly not been in the 
 wisest direction, as Roger, when he joined 
 him, in a moment perceived. 
 
 "I'm all right, Roger, 'pon my soul I am 
 — don't jaw, there's a good fellow ! " said
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 187 
 
 Barton, bearing rather heavily, notwithstand- 
 ing, upon Har land's proffered arm. '' I say, 
 though, aren't we a bit late ? There's that 
 song you know, to try over to-night, and — 
 and — and Kate, you know — you know, will 
 be waiting, won't she ? Awfully pretty 
 song ' Love and Life ' — has a haunting kind 
 of refrain that you can't forget, you know — • 
 awfully pretty. Have you heard it, Roger ? " 
 ''No, and don't mean to to-night," an- 
 swered Roger, brusquely. " There goes 
 eleven. Kate '11 be gone to bed, bless 
 you I 
 
 " Oh, hang it all ! — it must be ten, riX)t 
 eleven. What' 11 she think of us ? We pro- 
 mised, don't you know — " 
 
 " I don't know about myself, old man. 
 You did, I fancy." 
 
 " Did I ? I say, Roger, it must be ten. 
 Listen ! " 
 
 The chimes from the clock in the fine old 
 gray tower of the parish church of St. Eve's, 
 with the moonlight peeping through the 
 belfry bars and just touching the pictured 
 windows in the hoary southern walls of the 
 building, had ceased ; then eleven slow and 
 solemn strokes smote the tranquil atmos- 
 phere which brooded over the town. The 
 town-hall and corn-exchange in the market-
 
 188 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 place stood white, square, and still ; lights in 
 the upper windows of the surrounding houses, 
 where dwelt the chief shopkeepers in Cover- 
 ley-on-Dane, proclaimed that their occupants 
 were retiring for the night. 
 
 The doors and gates of '' The Gig " were 
 being banged and bolted; the gas, both in 
 bar and parlour, was being turned out. 
 Taverns of less repute, amongst which might 
 be ranked " The Wild Horse " and its oppo- 
 site rival " The Red-hot Poker," were like- 
 wise shutting up for the night, and ejecting 
 such lingering customers as were disposed to 
 ignore the legitimate closing-hour. 
 
 " Good - night — good - night ! " shouted 
 several friendly voices as Harland and Barton 
 Chance turned their backs upon St. Eve's 
 and the High Street and took a short cut 
 through an unsavoury locality known in 
 Coverley as Trinder's Yard, in order to get 
 to the Redtown road. 
 
 Although the Woldney meadows were 
 fairly high and dry, portions of those of 
 Borough yet remained under water ; so that 
 the two young men, for the greater part of 
 their homeward way, must tramp the Red- 
 town road. 
 
 " Good-night ! " cheerily sang out Chance, 
 looking backward ; and, taking his pipe from
 
 LTKE LOST SHEEP. 189 
 
 his mouth, lie waved an adieu witli it in the 
 moonlight — " good-night ; and I say, jou 
 fellows, if you — " 
 
 " Come along," interrupted Roger, gruffly, 
 dragging at Barton's arm. 
 
 Harland himself had neither turned his 
 head nor responded in any fashion to their 
 evening-companions' farewell. For one thing, 
 he was feeling vexed with Barton for his lack 
 of self-government, his deplorable weakness 
 of will ; for another, he was annoyed with 
 himself and his own carelessness in manaofino: 
 SO ill in his looking after Chance. 
 
 Roger knew well enough that Barton would 
 drink with any man that asked him ; and in 
 consequence of this foible of his, was apt 
 overnight to get himself into all kinds of 
 scrapes, for which, when morning came, 
 nobody indeed could be sorrier than Barton. 
 
 Roger knew this ; and yet, after entering 
 '' The Gig " and meeting with young Penfold 
 from Packhouse, he had suffered himself to 
 lose sight of Chance — who, in fact, had gone 
 straightway to the billiard-room — until within 
 five minutes or so of their quitting the hotel. 
 Then it was too late. Roger saw at a glance 
 that the mischief was done. 
 
 Harland himself was by nature no tavern- 
 haunter. When he did spend an evening at
 
 190 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 *' The Gig " or elsewhere, it was generally 
 some business object with a neighbouring 
 farmer like young Penfold which had led to 
 his being present at places of the kind. If 
 business had nothing to do with his going, he 
 went solely on account of, and to please. 
 Barton Chance. 
 
 He loved the man, and would save him if 
 he could. And Roger strongly suspected 
 that there was someone else to whom Barton 
 Chance was very dear. 
 
 *' Roger — where the deuce — I say, old chap, 
 where are you taking a fellow ? " Barton 
 suddenly cried, stumbling over a broken 
 curb-stone and well-nigh staggering into 
 the evil-smelling gutter. 
 
 '' Trinder's Yard — near cut, don't you 
 see," replied Roger, laconically. And so 
 saying, he halted and lit a fresh pipe, and 
 drew at it vigorously in the polluted air. 
 
 The foul darkness of the allev was all 
 around them now. A patch of dim light at 
 the farther end of it told where the alley 
 ended. 
 
 In the fairest and most innocent-looking 
 of country towns there are usually to be 
 found, in one part or another of them, 
 certain plague-spots like Trinder's Yard; 
 narrow nooks of crime, misery, and im-
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 191 
 
 morality, of the existence of whicTi respect- 
 able inhabitants are perhaps really unaware, 
 or else deem it easiest to ignore the fact 
 entirely. 
 
 What can they do, reputable folk like 
 themselves, with such horrible places ? they 
 perchance ask themselves feebly. They 
 would do something if they could, but — well 
 they don't. 
 
 Nobody appears to know who is the land- 
 lord of the wretched tenements, in which 
 ghoulish poverty and fearful language are 
 rampant from the end of one year to that of 
 another ; and it is not unlikely that nobody 
 cares either. 
 
 The school-board man, in these sad cran- 
 nies of the world, is hooted and defied ; a 
 solitary policeman knows better than to show 
 himself. Pious district- visitors, passing by, 
 turn their faces in another direction ; and 
 the Rector of the parish and his smug 
 satellites are alike deaf and blind to the 
 hideous sin which is born and lives and 
 thrives there. 
 
 Anyway, the Eeverend Septimus Haze 
 and the omnipotent dame who governed him 
 had never been known within the memory of 
 anybody to put their noses an inch down the 
 entrance of the den called Trinder's Yard.
 
 192 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 After all, the Yard, it may be, was not 
 nearly of such ill-repute as many a spot of a 
 similar character ; yet, taken altogether, it 
 was a very bad corner of the earth indeed, 
 because within very narrow limits there was 
 packed enough of wickedness to have stamped 
 as infamous an alley four times its size. 
 
 A stranger to Coverley-on-Dane would 
 scarcely have believed that, in the heart of 
 the pretty old town, there should be hidden 
 away so foul and unlovely a nook as Trinder's 
 Yard. 
 
 "Murder! Help — Murder!" 
 
 Blood-chilling shrieks, blows, curses, fol- 
 lowed. The two young men stopped short ; 
 and Barton's bright colour faded. The dull 
 sound of the blows turned him sick. 
 
 " Roger, what is it ? " he whispered. 
 
 There were no lamps in the alley. Here 
 and there the light of a tallow dip shone 
 palely out from a broken casement ; here 
 and there upon a blind or curtain the lean 
 shadow of some starved window-plant was 
 dimly figured. Farther down the Yard, 
 where the unwholesome gloom was thickest, 
 an assemblage of cats were celebrating their 
 orgies ; and unscared — doubtless being ac- 
 customed to them — by the ghastly shrieks of 
 murder and for deliverance, were wailing
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 193 
 
 in dismal chorus as only cats can wail when 
 daylight has fled and darkness fallen. 
 
 " Hark ! " said Roger ; " there it is again. 
 Which, 1 wonder, is the house — where does 
 it come from ? Great Heaven ! I can't stand 
 this. We must do something." 
 
 '' It's horrible ! " 
 
 The words dropped from Barton. Clinging 
 to Roger's stout arm, he looked helplessly 
 around him ; then, shivering, drew his hand 
 across his eyes. 
 
 The alcoholic fumes were passing from his 
 brain ; the shock wrought upon his nerves 
 by those despairing screams from a woman's 
 lips had doue something, nay much, towards 
 sobering the young man. 
 
 His temperament was of an affectionate 
 and excitable order — an impulsive nature 
 which hurled him into follies; his fibres 
 were highly strung ; and, as is frequently 
 the case with an organization like Barton's^ 
 he was easily vanquished by strong liquors 
 and as easily brought to himself again. 
 
 " Murder ! Murder ! " 
 
 Once more the voice, in accents of terror 
 and appeal, rang out upon the gloomy silence 
 which reigned in Trinder's Yard. 
 
 A door not far from Roger and Barton 
 opened cautiously just then; and two girls> 
 
 VOL. I.
 
 194 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 wLo were known in the Yard as Eackety 
 Nell and Surly Sal — dressed alike in black 
 and red plaid shawls of an enormous pattern, 
 large white aprons, and battered hats laden 
 with dirty artificial wreaths — looked out to- 
 gether and laughed. 
 
 The squalid interior behind them was lit 
 up with fire and candle; a heavy shutter 
 haying darkened the lattice from curious 
 and prying eyes. 
 
 E/Ound a common deal table in the centre 
 of the room were grouped some three or 
 four stalwart youths of the navvy or bargee 
 type; thick of throat, bloated of feature, 
 foul and blasphemous in their every other 
 word. 
 
 Before them lay scattered the greasy cards 
 they were playing with ; whilst within con- 
 venient reach stood black bottles and stone 
 jars and divers mugs and glasses from the 
 rickety dresser-shelves. 
 
 One of the girls was obviously tipsy. It 
 was Eackety Nell. 
 
 " That's our dear Bocky, I'll bet three 
 pen'o'th," said she, in a thick sing-song 
 voice, steadying herself as she spoke by the 
 aid of the door-post, " a-punishin' o' that 
 old Granny o' his 'n. The old gal's squeaking 
 louder than common to-night. Why can't
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 195 
 
 she take it quietly — dam her ! — and hold 
 her row ; we has to ; she'll bring the bobbies 
 round directly, and then — " 
 
 Eoger Harland strode up to the two girls. 
 
 " Which house is it ? " he demanded. " I 
 know Bocky Oakum lives somewhere in this 
 court, bub I have forgotten where it is." 
 
 Eackety Nell and Surly Sal started at 
 sight of him; and the latter — the less in- 
 toxicated of the two — clutching the gathers 
 of her companion's gown, tugged her vio- 
 lently backward into the room, slamming 
 the door almost on Roger's nose and draw- 
 ing the bolts which secured the door within. 
 
 " Ah, we knows ye ! " yelled the girl called 
 Nell through the keyhole. " You're peelers 
 in plain clothes ! We ain't done nothing — 
 we ain't. Go on with ye. What do you 
 want — " 
 
 " Which is the house where that woman's 
 screaming ? " shouted back Harland. 
 
 " It's on'y Granny Oakum," laughed out 
 the girl, hoarsely ; " three numbers further 
 down t'other side. She won't hurt, old 
 Granny won't. She's used to — " 
 
 In another minute Eoger was at Granny 
 Oakum's dwelling ; had with all his force 
 flung his body against the door of it. It, 
 yielding to his strength, flew clattering back
 
 196 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 upon the inner wall ; and Eoger then entered, 
 followed by Barton Chance. 
 
 The sole illumination in that ghastly and 
 filthy hovel was that which came weirdly 
 from a lean rushlight stuck slantwise in a 
 bottle upon the mantelshelf. No fire burned 
 upon the cold brick hearth; no strip of 
 carpet, matting, or sack even, hid the grim 
 ruggedness of the cold brick floor. A 
 damaged rocking-chair, a three-legged stool, 
 a bench under the window which served 
 as table — these things were all the furniture 
 the miserable place contained. 
 
 Before the black hearth a fagot was cast 
 down ; a fagot which with much labour 
 had been gleaned that day from the lone, 
 damp woods, and with much labour borne 
 homeward through the wintry twilight over 
 the dim fields. 
 
 Lying huddled there across the loose 
 bundle of wood was the form of an aged 
 woman. Her cap was off ; her thin gray 
 hair dishevelled and wet with blood ; there 
 were splashes of blood still wet upon the 
 walls. 
 
 Over her stood a devil in human shape, 
 now brutally — having felled her with blows 
 — kicking her helpless body. But she was 
 past crying " Murder ! " now; consciousness
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 197 
 
 was almost gone ; ber tears were well-nigh 
 spent. With every kick she moaned piteously 
 — that was all ; she had no strength for 
 more. 
 
 Koger rushed upon the drunken Bocky; 
 gripped him by the collar; and flung him 
 headlong over the three-legged stool. Where 
 the brute fell, there like a log he lay, cursing 
 and swearing hideously at the treatment and 
 interference he dared not resent. 
 
 Then Roger, as gently as he could, raised 
 the woman against his knee ; whilst Chance 
 — quite sobered now — fetched water from a 
 pump to wash the red smears from the 
 unhappy old creature's face. 
 
 She opened her eyes and recognised the 
 young miller; her "old man" — long since 
 dead and gone — having once worked for the 
 Harland family at the Little Mills. 
 
 "Ah, sir, is it you ?" said she, the tears 
 flowing again. " If you hadn't ha' come 
 along, he'd about done for me to-night, 
 Bocky would ; he's safe to do for me some 
 day, as it is." 
 
 She put her skinny old hand, so knotted 
 and thickly veined, to her forehead, and 
 presently tried to lift herself from the bundle 
 of wood. But she groaned with pain, and 
 could not stand yet ; so Eoger and Barton
 
 198 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 between them assisted her to her feet, and 
 gradually placed the old woman in the 
 rocking-chair by the hearth ; upon the ashes 
 of which Barton then began — with a serious 
 look in his dark- blue eyes — to kindle, 
 awkwardly enough, a little fire. 
 
 '' We'll make the kettle boil before we 
 go," observed the young fellow, kindly, " so 
 that you may have a cup of tea, you know, 
 Granny, before you go to bed. I'm afraid 
 it's too late to-night to get you anything 
 else." 
 
 Granny dried her tears in her red-stained 
 apron, and tremblingly glanced round at the 
 shadowy corner where her grandson still lay 
 as he had fallen from Roger's grasp. A 
 deep snore, however, with other guttural 
 sounds, revealed that he was locked in a 
 drunken sleep. 
 
 " He's safe there until to-morrow," said 
 Eoger, looking darkly at the unconscious 
 Bocky: " If you take my advice. Granny, 
 you'll leave him for the future to his fate, 
 and pitch your tent somewhere or other 
 beyond Trinder's Yard.'' 
 
 '' Ah, sir, it's easy to talk o' leaving 
 Bocky, but where's a poor widder woman 
 like me to go that has only her three-and- 
 sixpence a-week from the parish, and a
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 199 
 
 gallon o' bread on every Zaddurdaj," said 
 Granny Oakum — *' unless it's the 'Ouse. 
 True, sir, there's the 'Ouse for poor folk 
 like me ; but I'd rather be beat and bam- 
 mocked to death in the Yard than have to go 
 and die in the 'Ouse — I would, sir. Bocky 
 don't alius beat me — only when he's in 
 liquor and been spending his money at ' The 
 Poker.' He've been on the drink, sir," 
 rambled on the poor old soul, forlornly, 
 " all this blessed week ; and on'y t'other day 
 at ' The Gig ' they threatened to give him 
 the sack if he didn't meud, and afore long I 
 expect they'll do it too, and then — and then, 
 sir, there'll be no help for 't, and into the 
 'Ouse both on us'll go together." 
 
 *'Why did he ill-treat you to-night?'* 
 Barton inquired compassionately, wonder- 
 ing, as he surreptitiously explored his 
 pockets, whether he had any loose silver 
 left about him. " What was the row, then. 
 Granny ? ' ' 
 
 " Well, perhaps arter all it was my fault, 
 whimpered the old woman. " I'd been out 
 in the 'oods — 'coding, and got home dead 
 tired; had been out, gentlemen, nearly all 
 day long, and I am seventy-eight years o* 
 age come next Michaelmas, seventy-eight 
 years o' age. When I got back I fell 
 
 jj
 
 200 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 asleep in this 'ere chair ; the fire went out ; 
 and Bocky he come in and wanted his 
 supper. He'd been a-drinking at ' The 
 Poker ' all the evening, and began a-knock- 
 ing me about as soon as ever he come in- 
 doors — because there was nothing ready. 
 If you, sir," looking at Roger, "and this 
 other kind gentleman here, hadn't ha' been 
 passing through the Yard, I believe he'd 
 ha' done for me to-night. He've threatened 
 to do it often and often, and do it he' nil 
 afore he've done." 
 
 The tea by this time was made and 
 waiting in a small brown crockery pot with 
 a broken spout ; and the two young men 
 prepared to depart. Before turning their 
 backs, however, upon Granny Oakum and 
 the slumbering sot in the corner, they 
 squeezed a few shillings into her poor 
 horny old hand in token of their joint 
 sympathy ; Barton, with a smile, signi- 
 ficantly advising the old woman to look 
 well after her treasure, and Granny call- 
 ing down many a tearful benediction upon 
 the heads of her generous preservers. At 
 the beginning of the Redtown road they 
 met a Coverley policeman. Roger knew the 
 man, and briefly related to him what had 
 occurred in Trinder's Yard.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 201 
 
 *' You had better keep an eye on the 
 place," said he, " if any of you happen to 
 be in that neighbourhood between now and 
 morning. It is not at all unlikely, I should 
 say, that there may be another row on down 
 there before long." 
 
 " Drat 'em ! There's always a row on 
 down there,'' grumbled the burly custodian 
 of the peace. '' I can't help it ; I'm off duty 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 And the man continued his solitary tramp, 
 to end his beat at the granite obelisk in the 
 market-place of Coverley-on-Dane.
 
 CHAPTEE IX. 
 
 Barton Chance was strangely quiet during 
 tliat homeward walk with his friend Roger 
 Harland. 
 
 As a rule, Barton's tongue was seldom 
 idle ; his careless laugh was frequent and 
 pleasant to hear. 
 
 Once he had said — 
 
 '' By-the-bye, isn't that Bocky Oakum the 
 rascal that brought Miss Dexter by mistake 
 down to the Little Mills on the night she 
 should have arrived at the Pringles' ? " 
 
 " The same," was Harland's short reply. 
 "He'll end on the gallows some day." 
 
 "A very respectable place for such a 
 gentleman to end upon," replied Barton. 
 
 And silence again fell between them until, 
 quitting the Redtown road, they turned into 
 the mill lane. 
 
 Here trees were scarce and hedges low. 
 The fleecy, fretful-looking clouds were gone; 
 the white moon in a star- sprinkled sky now
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 203 
 
 rode high on her course. A cold breeze, 
 with a breath of frost in it, blew up from the 
 riverside ; the roar of the mills, which were 
 working all night, was borne distinctly 
 across the sleeping land. 
 
 In the lane it was nearly as light as day. 
 
 An exclamation of horror broke all at once 
 from the lips of Barton Chance. 
 
 Quickly withdrawing his arm from Roger's, 
 he held it out in the moonlight. 
 
 Dark red stains — crimson marks that were 
 barely dry — were visible upon his wristband 
 and upon the sleeve of the light cover-coat he 
 wore. 
 
 " Blood ! " he gasped. " It's bloody 
 Roger ! That old hag's blood upon my 
 clothes ! " 
 
 He staggered to a gate on the side of the 
 lane — a gate which led into one of the Wold- 
 ney clover-fields — and, flinging out his arms 
 upon the top bar of it, dropped his head 
 upon them and so hid his face. In an 
 instant Roger's hand rested on Barton's 
 shoulder. 
 
 " Barton, old chap, don't be a fool ! " said 
 he,, with rough kindness. " What if it is 
 blood ? It'll wash out fast enough. Come, 
 come, Barton, be a man ; don't let a trifle 
 like a spot of blood upset you ! I say, there
 
 204 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 goes twelve o'clock; and I want to have a 
 look round the mill before I turn in." 
 
 As Eoger spoke, midnight was tolled out 
 upon the still air ; from a cranky old stable- 
 clock at Woldney Moat, and from the brand- 
 new stable-yard at Borough Mills proper. 
 Then in the distance St. Eve's melancholy 
 chimes were faintly heard, beginning to ring 
 out as the others finished. 
 
 Barton, checking something like a sob, 
 lifted his fair head from the gate. He was 
 very pale. Those beautiful eyes of his were 
 troubled, piteous, almost wild. 
 
 " What a horrible thing this drink is ! " he 
 said, huskily, as if pondering the truism 
 aloud. " What a horrible, what an accursed 
 thing — " 
 
 " Has the fact come home to you only just 
 now ? " threw in Harland, drily. 
 
 '' I never until to-night felt so keenly the 
 horror of its complete dominion over a man," 
 said Barton — " never before realized the ex- 
 tent of its devilish power; never, on my 
 honour, Roger ! I don't know why it is — I 
 suppose it is this.'' He glanced again at his 
 blood-stained cuff, and shuddered. " The 
 recollection of — of what we saw a little 
 while ago in that foul alley at Coverley 
 makes me sick even now. Ah ! " cried the
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 205 
 
 youDg fellow, passionately, " Cassio was 
 right, Roger. Why should men ' put an 
 enemy in their mouths to steal away their 
 brains ? ' Roger, I swear that I will never 
 more — never after this night — touch another 
 drop of strong liquor. Heaven help me, I 
 won't ! " 
 
 Harland answered quietly again : 
 
 " Barton, don't be a fool, I say. You 
 know perfectly well that your present mood 
 and brave intentions will have undergone a 
 remarkable change before daybreak. Do try 
 to bear in mind, old man, that it is excess, 
 not moderation, which does the mischief. -If 
 you would but endeavour to keep that im- 
 pulsive and excitable nature of yours a bit in 
 check, you wouldn't come to grief half as 
 often as you do. I never knew such a fellow. 
 Try to have a will of your own, man ; try to 
 have a will of your own ! '' 
 
 Barton sighed. 
 
 " I wish I were more like you, Roger, 
 he said, with an all too-transient humility. 
 *' I'd give much to be a steady, plodding, 
 business-fellow like you — 'pon my word, I 
 really would. As it is, I don't fancy that I 
 shall ever cut much of a figure in the worlds 
 unless — " 
 
 " Pooh ! " was Roger's interruption. "A 
 
 iy
 
 206 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 man is either Tvhat lie makes himself or what 
 he allows his friends — his enemies perhaps — 
 to make him. Come, Barton ! Unless you 
 mean to pass the night leaning dejectedly 
 upon that old gate, I think we'll be moving 
 on. 
 
 When they reached the Little Mills the 
 Harlands' house was as quiet as a church. 
 There was a light in the narrow window of 
 Eoger's sanctum — that was all. 
 
 " Kate, you see, is gone to bed," observed 
 Harland, glancing upward. " However, I 
 have my key, so will come with you as far as 
 the Moat garden. 
 
 ?» 
 
 Chance made no comment on the first part 
 of his friend's observation, though he thought 
 penitently enough of his broken promise and 
 the new song ; but to the latter he an- 
 swered — 
 
 " Don't trouble, dear old fellow, I shan't 
 be five minutes getting there." 
 
 " I tell you I am going into the mill for 
 an hour or so before turning in. I am in no 
 hurry for bed — five hours at most are always 
 ample for me ; and I am coming with you as 
 far as the Moat grounds," replied Koger, in 
 that- quiet, determined way of his own. 
 
 The broad dark stream gleamed and 
 heaved beneath the quivering planks of the
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 207 
 
 straggling old bridge; the Woldnej meadows, 
 mistj and lonely in the frowning shadow of 
 the opposite woods, lay bathed in white 
 moonlight and silver-gray dew. 
 
 A wicket in a thick plantation which 
 bordered the wilderness of pleasure-grounds 
 at the Moat, opened on a secluded part of 
 the Woldney meadows — a narrow walk 
 winding from this gate in the copse to the 
 sloping southern garden of the great dreary 
 house. 
 
 Before this wicket, which at night was lost 
 in densest shadow, the two young men stood 
 still together. 
 
 *' Then you'll eat your Christmas dinner 
 with us. Barton — it's understood ? " Har- 
 land was saying, apropos of a subject that 
 Roger had started during their few minutes' 
 walk along the meadows. " I may tell Kate 
 so?" 
 
 " Thanks, do. As I said, I shall be only 
 too happy," replied Chance, gratefully. " My 
 * guardian ' being in Paris — I heard from him 
 yesterday — if you won't have me at the 
 Little Mills, you see, I must perforce remain 
 shut up in this lonely old barn with Sir 
 Garth for sole company; which will be an 
 exceedingly lively festival for both of us. I 
 can't very well go up to town, now that —
 
 208 ' LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Hark ! " whispered Barton, suddenly. *' Qui 
 Vive I 
 
 The figure of a man, not tall, and slight 
 in build, with a light coat covering his even- 
 in of clothes and a cio^arette between the wax- 
 white fingers of his jewelled left hand, was, 
 with slow steps, approaching the little wicket. 
 Wax-white, too, looked his features in the 
 moonlight. He walked almost like a man in 
 a dream — or like a man with senses sleep- 
 bound. 
 
 "It's Sir Garth himself, by Jove!" 
 breathed Barton. " I'm in for it — there'll 
 be a row, as sure as fate, if he catches me 
 out here at this hour. He drove to the 
 Pringles' in the brougham, I know, but I 
 suppose a fine night has tempted him to 
 stroll home. Look sharp — so ! " 
 
 Quick as thought Chance dragged Roger 
 Harland into the long wet grass which 
 fringed the copse on the field side, and 
 interposed between themselves and the 
 approaching figure a sheltering screen of bare 
 hazel boughs. Blackest shadows enveloped 
 them as they stood there ; no soul now could 
 discover tbem in that impenetrable gloom. 
 Sir Garth, on the contrary, was as yet in 
 the full light of the moon. They could dis- 
 tinguish plainly his neatly-trimmed short
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 209 
 
 beard and moustache, whicTi, together with 
 his eyebrows, had retained their dusky hue 
 of twenty years or more before ; whilst his 
 close-cropped hair, cropped in London style, 
 was in these days as gray-white as a patri- 
 arch's. The contrast in hair and beard was 
 not altogether, perhaps, a pleasing one; any 
 more than was the expression which just 
 now shone in his haggard eyes — eyes fixed as 
 are eyes in a waxen figure. An extreme 
 pallor, at this period of his life, marked the 
 features of Sir Garth Grilroy. 
 
 He opened the wicket and passed through 
 it, muttering audibly to himself as his whife 
 hand rested on the latch. The diamond he 
 wore flashed and caught the moonbeams ; 
 the exquisite fragrance of his Egyptian 
 cigarette was wafted to Barton and Roger 
 through the network of hazel-boughs. 
 
 Barton, as the master of the Moat closed 
 the little gate, could have tapped Sir Garth's 
 shoulder with his walking-stick. 
 
 " So like ! " he said aloud. " So like— 
 and yet so unlike. Good God ! if there 
 are ghosts, or their messengers who look 
 like them perhaps, from another world — 
 Faugh ! A stranger — it's impossible ! What 
 am 1 dreaming of? And yet how oddly tha 
 girl looked at me; I can't forget her — " 
 
 VOL. I. p
 
 210 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 He was gone ; his footsteps died slowly 
 into silence along tlie plantation path. 
 Eoger and Barton, stepping out from the 
 wet grass, in muteness stared at each other. 
 
 Barton spoke first; and laughed. 
 
 " What or whom the deuce was he talking 
 about ? " said he. " Any idea, E-oger ? " 
 
 " No more than the dead," replied Har- 
 land, carelessly. " Have you ? " 
 
 " Not I. I believe the man s mad — stark, 
 staring mad," said Chance. " In fact, I've 
 caught myself fancying so more than once 
 lately ; and to-night he looked like it, didn't 
 he?" 
 
 " He certainly looked queerish," admitted 
 Eoger. "But, there, it is no business of 
 ours, Bart. Perhaps he really had met a 
 ghost," added he, with a grim smile — 
 " shouldn't wonder." 
 
 "He seemed to fancy that he had seen 
 something unpleasant," laughed Barton. 
 " I have no doubt that he has more than 
 one skeleton locked away in the family-cup- 
 board — he is just the man to have half-a- 
 dozen. Perhaps they trot out sometimes, 
 one after another, and he ran against one of 
 'em just now." 
 
 Barton's spirits had risen in the momen- 
 tary excitement of the incident, small though
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 211 
 
 it was. His dejection, that sense of sorrow 
 and humiliation for follies committed and 
 past undoing, had quitted him, passed off — • 
 evaporated as it were with the fever and 
 confusion from his brain. He was once 
 more himself, his thoughtless, volatile self; 
 oblivious alike of the blood- stains upon his 
 sleeve and the ghastly sight his eyes had so 
 lately looked upon in that hovel in Trinder s 
 Yard. 
 
 Utterly did Barton Chance forget just 
 then his determination of an earlier part of 
 the evening, the resolution which he had 
 formed some four or five hours back. 
 
 " Do you know," said he, " I believe some- 
 thing is going to happen here at the Moat — 
 something dreadful in all probability — for 
 there's a ghost, or a banshee, or something of 
 the kind that flits about the place occasionally. 
 And that, you may depend upon it, is what 
 Sir Garth had met by the river, or wherever 
 it was that he saw it. Wo wonder he looked 
 scared ! Did ever you hear that Woldney 
 Moat was haunted, Roger? " 
 
 "Never. And now, Bart, good-night. 
 I'm going back." 
 
 " Stay, half a second ! and I'll tell you," 
 rattled on Chance. " It was one night last 
 week — I really forget which night, though, ^
 
 212 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 at this moment — but the moon had risen I 
 do recollect, because by the light of it I 
 caught a glimpse of her face." 
 
 " Whose face ? '* said Roger, wonderingly. 
 
 " You won t give me time. I was upstairs, 
 smoking and writing in my own quarters, 
 which, as you are aware, are above the 
 library and look out upon the south lawn, 
 which, as you equally well know, is bordered 
 by the moat wall, when something, I can 
 hardly say what — I believe now I must have 
 heard a footfall, a ghostly sigh perhaps, or 
 the rustling of a woman's garment, for, the 
 night being mild, I had got the windows 
 partly open — prompted me to rise from my 
 seat to look out on the garden below. It 
 was between nine and ten ; there wasn't a 
 shadow on the lawn ; Sir Garth himself was- 
 shut up in the library — the house was as still 
 as a vault." 
 
 " Well ? " 
 
 " Well, as I tell you, I looked out ; and, 
 gliding along there by the moat, and muffled 
 in what appeared to me to be a long black 
 hooded cloak, I saw a female figure. I did. 
 You needn't look so confoundedly incredu- 
 lous, Roger — " 
 
 *' I dare say. I am not in the least in- 
 credulous about it, Bart," said Harland,.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 213 
 
 yawiing, '* for I have no doubt that what 
 you saw was one of the women-servants out 
 for a breath of air. What more likely ? '* 
 
 " You won't give a fellow time," said the 
 other. " The figure paused ; looked towards 
 the library window ; and raised its hand, it 
 seemed to me, in a threatening kind of 
 manner. In another instant the moonlight, 
 falling upon its face, revealed to me the 
 features of — '* 
 
 " Of Mary Jane the housemaid. Sleep 
 well. Barton. In all probability, I shall see 
 you some time to-morrow — " 
 
 "No! Of Miss Dexter, the Pringles 
 governess, or I'm a Dutchman!" said Barton 
 Chance, triumphantly. 
 
 Harland started; started as a man will 
 sometimes start in spite of himself when 
 taken unawares and astonished painfully. 
 An angry flush dyed his brown cheek. He 
 looked at Barton in cold displeasure. 
 
 " I thought you were sober, old man," he 
 said. " I find I'm mistaken. Good-night." 
 
 " Eoger, don't say that ! " pleaded Barton, 
 really wounded, catching Harland's hand and 
 holding it affectionately between both his 
 own, and so detaining him. "I'm all right 
 now — indeed, indeed I am. There ! Con- 
 found my stupid tongue. I wish I'd never 
 
 »»
 
 214 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 told you. I vowed I wouldn't — vowed I 
 wouldn't only this very night — and now I've 
 gone and — Roger, dear old chap, I didn't 
 mean to vex you ; I — I — I didn't know — I — 
 I expect I was deceived, drunk at the time 
 if you like, after all — " 
 
 " Of course you were deceived — very likely 
 drunk at the time. Only it is a pity that 
 you do not try a little more to learn to think 
 before you speak — " 
 
 " And act, too, perhaps you would in- 
 sinuate. Haven't you jawed me enough for 
 one evening, Eoger ? " put in Barton, rue- 
 fully. 
 
 " As you will. Look here, old fellow," 
 said Eoger, in his turn feeling, after an in- 
 stant's reflection, annoyed with himself at 
 having allowed Barton to perceive that his 
 absurd tale had caused him — Roger — both 
 vexation and surprise, '' I didn't mean to be 
 bearish and unkind. Believe me, and for- 
 give me. Look ! there's a cloud over the 
 woods yonder no bigger than a man's hand. 
 Shouldn't wonder if we have rain again to- 
 morrow." 
 
 He wrung Barton's hand; looked back and 
 nodded; and strode off into the silent meadow; 
 his gigantic shadow thrown yards ahead of 
 him along the silvered grass.
 
 LIKB LOST SHEEP. 215 
 
 Barton stared after him ; the contrite and 
 rueful look — almost comic now in its rueful- 
 ness — still in his dark-blue eyes. 
 
 " What an ass I am ! " sighed he ; " what 
 a confounded, babbling ass ! And yet — and 
 yet — Yes, I am certain I was right enough 
 on that night. I couldn't have been mis- 
 taken — deceived — I had touched nothing to 
 speak of all day. It was that girl from the 
 Pringles', or her double. I can't make her 
 out. What the deuce can she want pranking 
 about here — " 
 
 He stopped. He still gazed half sadlj 
 after Roger's broad and rapidly retreatitig 
 back and the long grotesque shadow stridingT 
 along ahead of him in the moonlight. 
 
 "Dear, grave, steady old friend," ruminated 
 Barton aloud—" dear old Roger ! Fancy, 
 though, the wind's blowing in that quarter ! 
 Whew ! Who'd have thoughtit ? Well, it's 
 always the way in this world and always will 
 be so, I suppose. Griven two men that get 
 to be really fond of each other, and a 
 woman, sooner or later, is bound to come 
 between them ! "
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 It was known in tlie bousehold at 17, Cum- 
 berland Square, as '' Mr. Roy's room." 
 
 It was a luxurious room in every respect, 
 sumptuously and artistically furnished, if 
 not exactly in strict accordance with the 
 severely aasthetic taste of the period. 
 
 It was a room in which there was a good 
 deal of colour of various kinds; but the 
 tints and shades were all of so subdued a 
 character that they blended harmoniously one 
 with another like the tints and shades of 
 some grand old cathedral window when seen 
 by the dimming light of a glorious summer 
 evening. 
 
 The drapery about the windows and door- 
 ways was of darkest claret- coloured velvet; 
 a Persian rug and two or three wild-beast 
 skins covering the centre of the shining oak 
 floor. 
 
 Here and there upon the walls, which, 
 above the wainscot, were painted dove-gray,
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 217 
 
 there were bits of battered armour from 
 ancient battlefields, a rare old oil-painting, 
 small and dingy, of which perhaps there was 
 more of gilt frame than of coloured canvas ; 
 a bracket supporting a terra-cotta bust ; a 
 china bowl containing dried rose-leaves and 
 lavender. 
 
 There were cabinets through the glass 
 doors of which one caught a glimpse of more 
 old china, a cedar tray of coins, a bandit's 
 dagger ; treasures, curiosities of many lands, 
 collected both at home and abroad. 
 
 There were Queen Anne couches, and 
 Louis Quatorze screens, and a massive oak 
 table, black with age, and carved in a manner 
 marvellous to behold. 
 
 Above the brass " dogs " and fine old 
 mantelshelf gleamed out a great mirror, its 
 frame also of oak ; there were peacock- 
 feathers too upon the mantelpiece, a sandal- 
 wood casket, a tall antique gold candlestick, 
 .and a couple of quaintly-painted jars which 
 had been brought direct from Japan. 
 
 In a shadowy corner, standing well out 
 from the wall, was Roy's grand piano. 
 
 Flowers, books, and magazine literature 
 abounded everywhere ; the room being 
 lighted with Oriental lamps delightfully 
 .softened with rose-tinted shades.
 
 218 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Eoy Dexter himself had furnished the 
 room in obedience to his own caprices of the 
 hour ; and was continually — that is to say, 
 when he was strong enough to bear the 
 fatigue of driving hither and thither among 
 the famous *' curiosity streets " of London 
 — adding to his hoard of whimsical treasures. 
 
 Like many extremely delicate people, he 
 was fanciful to a degree that bordered on 
 eccentricity. At times he suffered much for 
 days together ; but, for a fragile, sensitive 
 young fellow such as was Roy Dexter, he 
 bore his sufferings with an amount of forti- 
 tude that was almost stoical in its silent 
 heroism. 
 
 Fortunately for him, his tastes were re- 
 fined, and he possessed ample means where- 
 with to gratify them. Books formed his 
 chief delight; and of these companions, when 
 he could read without pain, he never wearied 
 in the day or the night. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the brightest hours of 
 his lonely and dreaming life were those in 
 which his strength — as it did occasionally — 
 permitted him to spend an evening either at 
 a concert or a play ; where for a time, in the 
 rapture of a rare intellectual joy, he could 
 forget that his fate, in this life at least, was 
 to be cut off from the society of his fellow 
 men.
 
 LTKE LOST SHEEP. 219 
 
 He lay as usual upon a coucli drawn near 
 to tlie hearth, in that charming old room of 
 his at the house in Cumberland Square ; the 
 soft rose-light falling upon his fine and deli- 
 cate features and upon the head of the beau- 
 tiful girl who, on a foot-stool, sat by the 
 couchside. 
 
 The two were alike and yet not alike ; but 
 the merest stranger at first glance must have 
 guessed them to be brother and sister. Both 
 had the same soft dark hair with a natural 
 wave upon it ; the same delicate mould of 
 feature; the same dark, proud yet gentle 
 eyes. The expression of the two faces, 
 nevertheless, was totally dissimilar; his being 
 that of habitual thought and melancholy, 
 whilst upon hers, notwithstanding its perfect 
 grace, firmness and resolution were stamped 
 in characters that were not to be denied. 
 Had the lovely dark eyes been masked, or in 
 any wise concealed, one would have at once 
 pronounced that about those sweet lips there 
 was something more than a suspicion of 
 wilfulness and pride. 
 
 Her evening-gown, in which a few minutes 
 before she had been dining with her brother 
 and Mrs. De Lisle, was of soft black lace, 
 clinging and diaphanous; with, for sole orna- 
 ment in the way of flowers, a knot of crimson 
 blossoms which she had got from the con-
 
 220 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 servatory and fastened with their leaves at 
 her bosom. 
 
 Facing them, upon the opposite side of the 
 hearth, and occupying one of Roy's carved 
 high-backed chairs, sat a handsomely-attired 
 and wholesome-looking lady, in age between 
 forty and fifty — close, perhaps, upon the 
 latter figure. 
 
 She wore upon her person a quantity of 
 lace, for which she had a genuine weakness ; 
 and a good deal of costly jewellery as well. 
 
 This was Mrs. De Lisle — the late Doctor 
 Dexter's step-sister ; a childless widow, and 
 very rich, and with few near kindred in the 
 world now that her brother was gone ; a 
 widow who, had it not been for the fact that 
 she loved too well her freedom and her ease, 
 might have taken to herself another mate 
 a score of times over since the death of her 
 first, which had happened indeed many years 
 back. 
 
 But one trial in that direction had satis- 
 fied Mrs. De Lisle ; and she was perfectly 
 content with her widowhood. 
 
 In disposition she was sweet-tempered and 
 indolent, aud was devoted to the two young 
 people whom she called nephew and niece ; 
 they, in their turn, calling her " Aunt Helen. 
 
 In fact they did precisely whatever they 
 
 »»
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 221 
 
 pleased with wealthy and easj-going Mrs. 
 De Lisle ; poor Roy sometimes boasting that, 
 fragile as he was, he could twist with ease 
 substantial Aunt Helen round his little finger. 
 
 She never in the least thwarted them ; 
 never interfered with their wishes or plans ; 
 was always generous and always good- 
 humoured. They deferred to her, of course, 
 in matters of importance ; but her answer 
 was invariably the same in affairs both great 
 and little. 
 
 " Pray do as you like, my dears," she 
 would say equably ; "if you please your- 
 selves you will please me." 
 
 Or : " Don't study me. Decide for your- 
 selves. I'm agreeable, I assure you, to 
 whichever way you decide lo arrange it." 
 
 Therefore Miss Dexter, some weeks before,, 
 had experienced no difficulty at all in obtain- 
 ing the consent and the assistance of Mrs. 
 De Lisle in the furtherance, in the carrying 
 out successfully of a certain pet scheme of 
 her own and Roy's, which had ultimately 
 Ian ded her — • Miss Dexter herself — as 
 governess in the Pringle family, who lived 
 near Woldney Moat. 
 
 " It seems a mad idea, I must say, my 
 dear Minna," had observed Mrs. De Lisle, 
 with her accustomed placidity of manner.
 
 222 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 but in a tone of no remonstrance. She spoke 
 as if Minna were only proposing to attempt 
 the accomplishment of the most simple task 
 in the world. '' But I have no doubt that it 
 can be done if you, dear, and Eoy are bent 
 upon it — as you appear to be. And, as you 
 rightly say, the opportunity — the chance 
 offered you by this advertisement — is a 
 golden one ; and such another, in all likeli- 
 hood, will never occur again. It is very 
 extraordinary. Yes ; we'll put our heads 
 together and see what can be done. I don't 
 feel at all certain that our proceedings are 
 strictly fair and above board ; however, the 
 object in view is a just and praiseworthy one, 
 and that is surely something to be said on 
 our side, Minna.'' 
 
 " Justice, Aunt Helen, is everything ! 
 had replied Minna Dexter, firmly. " Cun- 
 ning must cope with cowardice and cunning. 
 It has for a long while been my first desire 
 in life to act for Roy, since Hoy has been 
 denied the power to act for himself. I do 
 not want revenge — as did our dear dead 
 mother — either for Eoy or for myself ; but, 
 at any cost, I will have justice for Eoy if 
 justice is to be obtained by any deed or 
 sacrifice of mine. I am old enough to act 
 now ; and act I will. One cannot fail — I 
 
 >>
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 223 
 
 remember hearing our mother often say so — 
 if one has right in one's favour. Might 
 may triumph for a time ; but right will 
 conquer in the end. It is for Roy, my 
 darling brother, that I do this thing — for 
 myself I care not a straw. If it rested with 
 myself alone, I would rather die, Aunt Helen, 
 than I would touch the hand or look upon 
 the face of this Sir Garth Gilroy." 
 
 Between the brother and sister a great 
 and boundless love existed. In their lives, 
 in their love for each other, they were truly 
 lovely, if in death, in a time to come, they 
 should be divided ! 
 
 This evening, which found them all three 
 sitting together in Roy Dexter s room, was 
 the last of Minna's brief Christmas " holiday." 
 On the morrow she would leave their great 
 house in the Square and start once more for 
 Borough Mills. 
 
 Throughout dinner they had talked of 
 little save Minna's proposed tactics in the 
 future campaign ; and now that they had 
 left the dinner-table to drink their coffee in 
 Roy's picturesque study, their thoughts still 
 ran, as was natural on this last evening, upon 
 the plans and intentions which Minna had in 
 hand. For would not to-morrow, said Minna, 
 with a bitter little smile, to Roy, see her
 
 224 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 back again in tlie neighbourliood. of their 
 natural enemy ? 
 
 " I have done little enough as yet, Heaven 
 knows," said she, looking fondly up into 
 Roy's pathetic eyes; and he, putting aside 
 the open book which he had but that moment 
 taken half-mechanically from a table near his 
 couch, stroked with his long white hand his 
 sister's dark soft hair. " I have been only 
 once, Roy, to Woldney Moat ; and that was 
 a visit paid by stealth, as you are aware* 
 And, dear, there are times when the terrible 
 misgiving steals over me that I never shall 
 do anything at all worth speaking of. I lose 
 heart ; my courage fails me ; and — and, now 
 and again, I catch myself wondering whether 
 the game is worth the candle, Roy?" 
 
 " I do not believe that it is worth the 
 candle," said the young man in his gentle 
 voice. '' Let it — let him — go, Minna. Give 
 up the whole thing and come back to us." 
 
 " Never ! Now that I have made a 
 beginning, I will go on to the end, Roy 
 — bitter though it be. For your sake, Roy 
 dearest, I will not give in. Then, too — you 
 forget ! There is the poor old grandfather. 
 Now that we have found him, something 
 by-and-by must be done for him. It wrings 
 my heart to see him, at his age, living so
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 225 
 
 hard and so lonely a life. But he clings to 
 it and won't give it up. I think it would 
 kill him if he were taken from the Lock." 
 
 " And during all these many years, you 
 say, Minna, he has remained in total ignor- 
 ance of the truth ? " remarked Mrs. De Lisle, 
 cosily. "Dear me! how very odd; and living, 
 too, as he does — does he not ? — within sight 
 of Woldney Moat. How very curious, to be 
 sure ! 
 
 " Ah ! Aunt Helen," threw in Roy cynic- 
 ally, " have not you yet discovered that the 
 world is merely a vast museum of contrasts 
 of all kinds, of grim facts, of curious things 
 of all sorts ; that one should never be sur- 
 prised at anything that one may hear or see 
 in it. I am not very old — but I have already 
 learned that much. It is a very hard old 
 world to understand, Aunt Helen." 
 
 " I don't think that I have ever thought 
 anything at all about it, Roy. I have always 
 found it a very nice, comfortable old world ; 
 and I should be very sorry to leave it — that 
 I do know," cheerfully replied the good, simple 
 lady. " However," continued she, " we were 
 speaking of that poor dear childish old 
 man at the Lock. Couldn't we give him a 
 sum of money at once, and put him into a 
 nice little home of his own ? How really 
 
 VOL. I. Q
 
 226 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 wonderful it is that lie should have taken so 
 strong a fancy to you, my dear child ! that 
 he should sometimes, without knowing it, 
 call you by your real name ! It must be a 
 kind of instinct, I suppose, or — or Providence 
 or something. Now cannot we do what I 
 suggest, my dears ? I think myself it is an 
 excellent notion." 
 
 " Not yet," was Minna's firm reply. 
 *' People, I know, already comment upon my 
 so often going to the Lock cottage. Your 
 suggestion, kind as it is, dear Aunt Helen, 
 cannot yet be carried out. Doing so would 
 immediately rouse suspicion. One must be 
 cautious, I can well perceive, in dealing with 
 Sir Garth Gilroy. Do you know, the other 
 evening when I first spoke to the man, I 
 trembled lest I should faint — brave as I fancy 
 myself to be — and drop like a dead thing on 
 the carpet at his feet. My heart seemed to 
 stand still — my blood to turn cold. And he 
 — oh, Roy ! — he looked at me in such a strange, 
 scrutinizing manner, that I thought for an 
 instant that he assuredly must divine who I 
 was — had discovered the truth ! But that, of 
 course, would be utterly impossible ; he be- 
 lieving all that he does believe." 
 
 " Curse him, my Minnehaha ! " said the 
 young man, in his tender low voice, just for
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 227 
 
 all the world as if lie had said " Bless him ! " 
 instead. "He is a scoundrel if ever one lived 
 on earth. If I were a strong man, Minna, 
 dearest and pluckiest of sisters, and not the 
 sickly and useless being that I am, I would go 
 down to Woldney with you to-morrow and 
 would horsewhip the villain within an inch 
 of his life. I would, Minna — and Heaven 
 forgive me for it if I am wrong ! " 
 
 " Do you know, Hoy," she said, looking 
 long and earnestly at her beloved brother, as 
 he lay there so weak and frail on his sofa, 
 " you are in truth very like him ! Where the 
 likeness is I cannot quite determine. But it 
 would never do for you to go to Woldney — 
 at least, not yet. All the same — " 
 
 " Perdition seize him ! " murmured Roy, as 
 softly and dispassionately as before. " I am 
 sorry for it." 
 
 Here Mrs. De Lisle struck in with her cosy 
 laugh. 
 
 " How funny it is, children," said she, " to 
 hear you speaking of your own father in that 
 disrespectful fashion — " 
 
 *' Father ! " interjected Minna, scornfully. 
 " He is father to us only in name ! Heaven 
 is too just to demand of any child honour and 
 respect for such a father as he." 
 
 "Hear, hear ! " said Roy, iutertwining his
 
 228 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 delicate fingers amongst tlie waves of liis 
 dusky hair. 
 
 "After all," continued Mrs. De Lisle, 
 letting the strip of lace-work over which she 
 was professing to be very industrious, drop 
 with her smooth jewelled hands idly into her 
 lap, and looking across with mild perplexity 
 in her countenance at the weakly, handsome 
 lad upon the couch and the devoted girl upon 
 the footstool at his side — " after all, since you 
 cannot wreak upon this bad man the ven- 
 geance for which your mother in her lifetime 
 yearned, it really seems to me, dear Minna, 
 that not much remains for you to do. He 
 has not married again, therefore the revenge 
 — I repeat, it seems to me — ^for which your 
 mother schemed and lived, has become — well, 
 impracticable. You tell us that the estate is 
 in a wretched condition, and that Sir Garth 
 himself is little better than a ruined man. 
 Surely, there is not much to be gained ? No, 
 Minna ; looking at the whole business from 
 more points of view than one, I am inclined 
 to echo the observation you made just now : 
 that the game does not appear to be worth 
 the candle. Of course, you and Roy know 
 best," said Mrs. De Lisle, serenely taking up 
 again her dingy strip of lace-work. " Still, 
 it is not, my dears, as if he were a parent
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 229 
 
 worth claiming — is it ? And it is not as if 
 either you or 'Roj wanted money from him ; 
 for, on the contrary, you want nothing of 
 the kind; both of you, as it happens, having 
 plenty of your own." 
 
 Minna's lips tightened ; her bosom heaved ; 
 in that rose-red light from the pretty lamps a 
 passionate fire seemed to smoulder and glow 
 in the velvet depths of her soft eyes. 
 
 " Money ? No ! Thank Heaven, we do not 
 want money! " she said at last. ''But our 
 claims upon him, the claims of our dead 
 mother as well, he shall acknowledge. Wold- 
 ney Moat and Lonefield Grange, both of thetn 
 are Eoy's by inheritance, and I shall claim an 
 acknowledgement of his birthright from Sir 
 Garth Gilroy. He may have mortgaged 
 every available acre of land not strictly 
 appertaining to those two old houses; but 
 those two old houses themselves, so ruined 
 and desolate now, and the few acres which 
 have belonged to them for generations and 
 generations of dead and gone Gilroy s. Sir 
 Garth cannot meddle with in any manner 
 whatsoever. This was one day explained to 
 me by Mr. Pringle, who, horrid and vulgar as 
 he may be, is nevertheless a shrewd man of 
 business, and well understands these things. 
 Our money, by-and-bye — Eoy's and mine —
 
 230 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 can restore, shall do wonders, both for Wold- 
 ney Moat and the Grange." 
 
 " But Sir Garth, you know, may not believe, 
 may boldly deny the truth of your tale, when 
 the time comes for the telling of it," said Mrs. 
 De Lisle. " I fancy we shall have some difiB.- 
 culty, my dear Minna, in proving all that we 
 want to prove. But I daresay you know 
 best." 
 
 " He must and he shall believe ! " cried 
 Minna Dexter, impetuously. " He cannot 
 help believing when he shall come to hear 
 everything." 
 
 Unconsciously she touched her breast as if 
 caressing a treasure concealed in it. E-oy's 
 arm stole round her neck, but he said nothing ; 
 he was looking tired. 
 
 She continued : 
 
 " There is a rumour in the neighbourhood 
 of Coverley that Sir Garth is trying to find for 
 himself a rich wife, whose dower shall mend 
 his own fallen fortunes. But no woman, I 
 vow to Heaven, Aunt Helen, shall ever become 
 a second wife of his until he has done justice 
 to the memory of his first. I am on the watch ; 
 I will be in no haste ; I can bide my time — 
 but justice for our dead mother, for Roy, and 
 for me, I will have sooner or later at the hands 
 of Sir Garth Gilroy."
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 231 
 
 " Dearest and bravest of sisters," mur- 
 mured E,oy, wearily — '' my Minnehaha, my 
 lovely Laughing ^ater, how hard, how very 
 hard it is for me that you should do all and I 
 nothing!" 
 
 She pressed her cheek against the thin 
 white hand upon her shoulder, a world of 
 love for Roy expressed in the simple deed. 
 
 " There is nothing upon earth, you know 
 that, Hoy, that I would not attempt for your 
 dear sake," she said. 
 
 " Tell us," put in Mrs. De Lisle, throwing 
 aside, with a poorly-disguised yawn, her tiny 
 needle and scrap of work, and, leaning back 
 against the tapestry padding of her tall carved 
 chair — " tell us, dear, something more of 
 those Harland people who seem so good and 
 kind. From the little you say about them in 
 your letters, they do seem really very kind and 
 nice. The young man especially rendered 
 you a great service, a very great service, 
 Minna — you must admit that." 
 
 '' Ah, I hope some day to shake his hand for 
 that piece of work," threw in Roy, with a 
 flicker of real energy in his tired voice. 
 
 Again the girl pressed her cheek caressingly 
 to her brother's hand, but she did not speak. 
 
 " You manage to find plenty to write about 
 the Pringle people and their funny, silent little
 
 232 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 grandchildren, wliom you say tliat you have 
 got quite to like," went on placid Aunt Helen 
 — " the Pringle vulgarity and ostentation, and 
 so forth ; but of their neighbours, these Har- 
 lands, who seem so very much nicer in every 
 respect, we seldom hear in your letters, Minna, 
 beyond a few lines — do we, Eoy ? And there 
 are only a brother and a sister in family, too, 
 I think you said ; like E-oy and yourself, dear. 
 How odd ! " 
 
 " How well I recollect, mere child though 
 I was at the time," observed Koy Dexter, 
 dreamily, " hearing our mother speak both 
 of the Pringles and of the Harlands, and of 
 her own free life at the Lock by the beautiful 
 Dane, in those long sad talks which she, dear 
 soul, and the Doctor — God bless him ! — used 
 to have together at that quiet old Brompton 
 house in Prince's Street, when the evenings 
 were long and we played round the fire at his 
 knee. Do you remember, Minna ? " 
 
 " I remember, dear. It is not likely that 
 I ever can forget." 
 
 " And how strange it is, my Minnehaha, 
 that you should now be living near Woldnej 
 Moat I And as a governess too ! You a 
 governess, Minna ! " 
 
 '* Strange indeed, dear," she smiled. 
 
 A hansom went rattling past in the raw
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 233 
 
 winter night; a postman, with his last de- 
 livery, was dealing his "rat-tat" at one of 
 the great pillared doors in the Square. Minna, 
 rising from her low seat, took from the mantel- 
 piece a screen of peacock-feathers, which she 
 held as she stood between her face and the 
 fire. 
 
 " Well, Minna," suggested Mrs. De Lisle, 
 who had not forgotten her unanswered ques- 
 tion, aimless in intent though it was. 
 
 The girl started slightly. 
 
 '' Yes ? Oh, I beg your pardon, Aunt 
 Helen ; about — about the Harlands, you 
 mean. If I do not, when I write, find mu.ch 
 to say about them, it is — it is, I suppose, 
 because, in reality, I see so little of them. 
 "When — when I do see them, however, they 
 are, as I have told you, very, very kind. 
 With the Pringles it is different. Am I 
 not " — with a shrug — " always with the 
 Pringles ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes, of course — that is it, I sup- 
 pose," said Mrs. De Lisle, vaguely. 
 
 '' Where," inquired Minna, abruptly turn- 
 ing this point of the conversation, " where. 
 Aunt Helen, do our friends in town think 
 that I am now living ? " 
 
 " They think you are somewhere in the 
 country, on a long round of visits. That
 
 J> 
 
 234 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 is what I tell everybody, dear cliild," laughed 
 Mrs. De Lisle, cheerfully. 
 
 " Ah me ! a terrible fib. Aunt Helen, 
 said Minna, wistfully. " And yet — and yet 
 what else can one say ? " 
 
 " I'm sure I don't know, my dear," replied 
 Mrs. De Lisle, in her cosy way. " I think 
 myself it is a very good explanation. It 
 satisfies the most inquisitive — and that is 
 everything." 
 
 " Heigh-ho ! " said Minna ; " I fear that 
 we are weaving a very tangled web. Roy, 
 dear," she went on, hastily checking a sigh 
 as she turned from Aunt Helen to bend 
 over her brother, "what are you reading 
 — a new novel ? Yes, I see it is," taking 
 up the open book and glancing through its 
 pages. It was the third volume of a story 
 called Madeline — written by a well-known 
 hand, and a favourite author of Roy's. 
 
 " Yes ; it's Madeline^' said the young 
 fellow, listlessly ; " the same tale, don't you 
 know, upon which the new play now running 
 at the St. James's is founded. The heroine 
 is lovely, brave, and devoted, and sticks at 
 nothing to gain a righteous end. I really 
 believe she reminds me somewhat of you, 
 Minnehaha." 
 
 " Does she, Roy ? Well, it is time, I
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 235 
 
 think, that you were going to bed. You 
 are looking fagged, my dearest — and that 
 must not be. I will bring your wine up 
 to you, and will sit with you, if you like, 
 while you try to sleep, and read Madeline 
 aloud— shall I, Roy?" 
 
 " I should like nothing better, my Laugh- 
 ing Water," replied the young fellow, look- 
 ing up at Minnehaha with his sad sweet 
 smile. 
 
 Lovingly she assisted him to rise from the 
 couch ; Mrs. De Lisle going before them to 
 light the candles in the hall. Aunt Helen 
 was yawning prodigiously now. 
 
 " Well, Minna, I hope you will enjoy this 
 dance on the 7th," said she. 
 
 "It will not concern me, Aunt Helen," 
 answered the girl, quietly. " I shall not 
 dance." 
 
 " My Minnehaha, my beautiful sister, not 
 dance at a ball ! " whispered Roy, incredu- 
 lously. " Oh, nonsense — nonsense — " 
 
 She stopped his lips with a kiss. 
 
 So, with his arm resting on Minna's, Roy 
 went laboriously up to his bed ; Mrs. De 
 Lisle parting with them at her dressing- 
 room door. 
 
 An hour later Roy's melancholy eyes 
 were closed in uneasy slumber; the long
 
 2S6 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 and wearisome dav for him was once more 
 ended. He slept witli Minna's kisses still 
 warm upon his lips, and Minna's loving, 
 passionate prayers still hovering perhaps 
 around his pillow. 
 
 At the head of the fine staircase, upon the 
 first landing, she met Mrs. De Lisle' s maid. 
 
 *' Do you require my services to-night, 
 Miss Minna ? " asked the woman, who had 
 known Minna Dexter for many years. 
 
 '' Not to-night, Hobson, thank you," she 
 answered. "I am not going to bed just 
 yet." 
 
 At the foot of the wide stairs in the hall 
 she encountered Bing the footman. 
 
 " I am locking up for the night. Miss 
 Dexter," said the man. '' Shall I extinguish 
 the lights in Mr. Eoy's room ? " 
 
 "No, thank you," replied Minna. ** I 
 will put them out myself." 
 
 She passed into her brother's study, shut 
 the door, and drew the velvet curtain across 
 it. The beautiful artistic room, with its 
 subdued tints and coloured shadows, seemed 
 at this hour very sombre and still. The 
 dying wood embers were dropping upon the 
 hearth ; the heads of the wild-beast skins 
 lying about looked half ferocious in the 
 tinted gloom. Minna could hear the step
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 237 
 
 of a policeman upon the broad damp pave- 
 ment of Cumberland Square. 
 
 She reseated herself upon the footstool by 
 her brother's couch and laid her head where 
 he had lain. 
 
 Upon her knee she held the third volume 
 of the story called Madeline; but never a 
 page of it did she turn now. Indeed she 
 scarcely knew that the book was under 
 her hand, havinsf all unconsciouslv brouo:ht 
 it down with her from Roy's bedside. 
 
 So she sat there, quite alone, her eyes 
 fixed on the dying wood ashes, falling — 
 falling — like tlie leaves in autumn. Though 
 awake, she sat there dreaming far into the 
 night — " the dead unhappy night " — of Roy's 
 future and of her own.
 
 CHAPTER XL 
 
 *' Topps, how do I look ? Come, tell me the 
 truth now ! " 
 
 " Lovely, miss — jest lovel-ly," said Topps, 
 stepping backward a couple of yards or so 
 and clasping her lean hands ecstatically. 
 "You're a real vishin of beauty to-night, 
 Miss Jooly ; you are indeed ! " 
 
 " Really and truly, Topps ? " said Julia 
 Pringle, advancing, retreating, smiling, en- 
 deavouring to glanced own her bare shoulder- 
 blades, and sweeping from side to side before 
 the long cheval-glass in her room, on the 
 night of the New Year ball at Borough Mills. 
 
 "Really, miss. Your dress is perfect," 
 said Topps. " There ain't a hatom o' fault 
 to be found with it anywhere. Anybody 
 with heyes in their 'ead can see it's a London 
 gownd ; the fit of itself would tell 'em that." 
 
 " I think I like the pink better than the 
 blue — don't you, Topps ? — the blue is so in-
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 239 
 
 sipid, isn't it ? " said Julia, gingerly putting 
 witli a tiny powder-puff certain finishing 
 touches to her already palpable complexion. 
 Then she took up a pencil from the toilet- 
 table and carefully finished off her eyebrows 
 as well. 
 
 *' Better than the blue ? Oh, a million 
 thousand times ! " gushed Topps. " Pink 
 satin, miss, always do show up so beautiful 
 by candlelight. I should have chose the 
 pink myself." 
 
 Here Hetty tripped into Julia's room, 
 attired in a ball-gown of a similar style to 
 that of her sister ; but whilst Hetty had de- 
 cided on pale-blue satin, Jill had fixed upon 
 pink. 
 
 Both gowns in the bodies of them were 
 brazenly low-cut ; with just about as much 
 sleeve or *' shoulder-strap " as was perhaps 
 demanded by common decency. Both were 
 laced up behind, and fitted close to the 
 figure ; indeed, Jill's ample outline looked 
 almost matronly, so tightly had Topps, in 
 obedience to the damsel's desire, tied back 
 in the approved line of fashion the hidden 
 strings of that pink satin train. 
 
 And then their heads! If their ''frinofes" 
 were marvellous to behold on every day of 
 the week, is it not likely that they would be
 
 240 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 doubly amazing on the nigbt of their New 
 Year ball ? 
 
 " I would not be too liberal, if I were you, 
 in the manipulation of that little fluffy thing," 
 observed Hetty, briskly. " My poor old 
 dear ! you look positively ^o^^r?/ already, and 
 people may be inclined to crack ill-natured 
 jokes, don't you know. We know quite well 
 what fellows are behind our backs. ' By 
 Jove, Miss Julia, how quite too awfully 
 charming you look — quite fetching, by Jove I' 
 I can hear Tim Maltover saying unblush- 
 ingly to your face ; afterwards — having 
 shunted you — to some other fellow : ' By 
 Jove, that girl ! Did you see the powder ? 
 — laid on with a trowel, don't you know. It 
 flew off in clouds just now, by Jove, and I've 
 done nothing but sneeze ever since. Look 
 at my coat, old man ! ' " And the vivacious 
 Hetty made a feint of brushing something 
 from her plump bare arm, which she 
 presently proceeded to cover from public 
 view in the longest and most fashionable of 
 many-buttoned gloves. 
 
 " Any idiot can see that you are 
 smothered," retorted Julia, unamiably — 
 " especially your nose." 
 
 " That's soon remedied, Jill," coolly re- 
 marked Hetty, who, having recently imbibed
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 241 
 
 a cup of strong coffee witli a dasli of cognac 
 in it, was in excellent spirits and entirely 
 satisfied with her own dazzling appearance 
 in the Cambridge-blue satin from Madame 
 Theodore's in Eegent Street. She skipped 
 over to Topps and held up her face. 
 
 '' Blow on it, Topps dear, please," said 
 she — " gently ; not too hard. You know 
 exactly how to do it, for you've done it 
 before." 
 
 Topps sniggered, and did as she was 
 bidden. 
 
 " La ! Miss Hetty, how you do go on," 
 she said. 
 
 If it be true that no man is a hero to his 
 own valet, it must be equally impossible that 
 any woman should be respected by her own 
 abigail. 
 
 " Gurls ! gurls ! " cried a loud voice on the 
 landing; '' aren't you ready ? What a time 
 you do take to be sure ! Your par says he 
 can hear a carriage on the Margrave road ; 
 so I'm just going down. It's the Carraway- 
 Joneses, I expect ; they are always early." 
 And a mighty frou-frou in the corridor 
 outside proclaimed that Mrs. Pringle was sail- 
 ing downstairs to welcome the Carra- 
 way-Joneses. 
 
 The '* gurls," thus admonished, caught up 
 
 VOL. I. K
 
 242 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 in haste gloves and bouquets, handkerchiefs 
 and fans, and prepared to follow their mother 
 to the drawing-room below; which at 
 Borough Mills was a really fine and spacious 
 apartment, and which on this memorable 
 annual occasion was always gorgeously de- 
 corated and brilliantly illuminated to serve 
 the purpose of ball-room. 
 
 *'Topps," Hetty took an opportunity to 
 whisper to the tiring-maid, as the sisters 
 left the elder's dressing-room, Jill marching 
 on ahead, buttoning her glove, and with 
 thoughts intent upon the conquests she 
 meant to achieve by-and-by, " candidly now, 
 Topps, which do you like best — the pink or 
 the blue?" 
 
 Thus again appealed to, the worthy Topps 
 called up an expression of feature which 
 demanded as plainly as speech itself how any 
 young lady in her senses could possibly ask 
 such a question ; and whispered in reply — 
 
 " The blew, of course, miss, a hundred 
 million times. Why, there ain't no compari- 
 son whatever ! " Adding, hurriedly : " Don't 
 tell Miss Jooly I said so, though, Miss 
 Hetty; she mightn't like it — and — and 
 might be jealous, you see." 
 
 " No, no, no ! And do I look nice ? " 
 
 " Lovel-ly, Miss Hetty ! " replied Topps.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 243 
 
 ** You'll be the belle o' tlie ball." And once 
 more she clasped her hands ecstatically and 
 rolled up her artful eyes. 
 
 " I'll give you my purple cashmere to- 
 morrow," said Hetty, glancing over her 
 nude and powdered shoulder and nodding 
 familiarly to the smirking maid. " And, 
 Topps, you duck, if I run up here and ring 
 the bell, it is for — well, Topps, you know 
 what." 
 
 Topps returned the nod in a very knowing 
 fashion indeed ; and then the two girls, in 
 the sheen of their satin and the flash of the 
 jewels they wore, trailed down the wide 
 staircase together — Miss Topps now, with 
 scorn on her pale lip and in her faded eye, 
 leaning over the balustrade upon the landing 
 and watching their descent to the hall. 
 
 " I wonder they ain't ashamed o' their- 
 selves — I do ! " she muttered. '' If I was 
 dressed out like that — I — I should pray that 
 the earth might open and swallow me out o' 
 sight ! I shouldn't know where to 'ide my 
 'ead for shame," said Topps, shivering virtu- 
 ously. 
 
 The Pringles' smart roomy house was a 
 blaze of light on this the night of the 7th of 
 January ; and the head-gardener had robbed 
 his winter-houses of their choicest treasures
 
 244 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 in order to furnisli flowers for the lavisli 
 decorations. Flowers and light were indeed 
 everywhere. 
 
 Mrs. Pringle herself was resplendent in 
 sage-green moire antiqiie^ which had also 
 come down from Madame Theodore's estab- 
 lishment — being stout and florid, she was 
 fond of green of all shades,. believing that no 
 other colour became her half so well — with 
 real rubies round her fat neck and real 
 rubies in her ears. 
 
 People were arriving fast; it was half- 
 past nine o'clock. Along the Margrave 
 road, from Coverley way, there came a 
 heterogeneous stream of vehicles — private 
 carriages of all sorts, together with hired 
 flies from " The Gig Hotel " ; one after 
 another they rattled up to the door of the 
 Pringles' house. 
 
 In the wake of the Carraway- Joneses from 
 Margrave — the Carraway-Joneses were re- 
 tired bone-manure manufacturers — had come 
 a crowd of folks from Twycross; then more 
 arrivals from Coverley; and then a batch 
 from distant Redtown. 
 
 All the world, of a sort, it would appear, 
 had been invited to the Pringles' ball. 
 
 When the Harlands from across the water, 
 accompanied by Barton Chance, put in an
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 245 
 
 appearance the rooms were nearly full, and 
 the first two dances on the list for the even- 
 ing were over. 
 
 Roger and Kate — the latter being simply 
 arrayed in a white silk gown, trim of fit, as 
 were all Kate's garments, with a soft lace 
 ruff worn high about her throat, whilst she 
 carried a magnificent bouquet of tea-roses 
 and lilies-o£-the-valley which Barton had 
 caused to be sent to the Little Mills direct 
 from Covent Garden — sat down by each 
 other near one of the doors, and began — 
 though neither admitted the fact to the other 
 — narrowly to observe the moving figures 
 in the crowd. 
 
 Barton, who had just been chatting with 
 Mrs. Pringle and telling her seriously how 
 well the green moire became " her style," 
 at that instant appeared and stood before 
 Kate. 
 
 He looked, as good-looking fair men always 
 do, exceedingly handsome in his evening 
 clothes; his face flushed, his eyes alight 
 with pleasure. He stretched out his hand. 
 
 " Kate, where is your card ? You pro- 
 mised your first dance to me — you know you 
 did. There goes the band, so come along ! " 
 Baid he. 
 
 " I promised you the first I danced — yes, 
 
 )»
 
 246 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 she answered. " But I am not yet quite 
 ready. I will dance with no one until I 
 have danced with you. Barton." So telling 
 him, she pressed to her lips the sweet flowers 
 he had given her, and over the leaves and 
 blossoms of them looked up at him plead- 
 ingly. " And — and, in return, you must 
 promise me something. Barton. Will you ? " 
 she said. 
 
 " My dar — " he began, impulsively. 
 
 '' Hush ! " said she, gently, with almost a 
 look of pain. 
 
 *' Anything, Kate," he said then, more 
 gravely. " What is it ? " 
 
 '' That — that you will be careful to-night, ''* 
 she murmured — " Barton, for my sake ! " 
 
 He bent his fair curly head as he an- 
 swered : 
 
 " For your sake, Kate, I would — " 
 
 But Chance just then was permitted to 
 register no brittle vow. An enormous pale- 
 blue satin fan with feather- edging was tap- 
 ping his sleeve ; and, turning, he beheld 
 Hetty Pringle standing there beside him. 
 She held out coquettishly a filigree-silver 
 basket containing programmes, and was still 
 panting from her exertions in the dance 
 lately ended. 
 
 " Thanks," said Barton, stammering and
 
 JJ 
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 247 
 
 smiling, " I — I have one — see ! Mrs. Pringle 
 kindly gave it to me a minute ago. How 
 very pretty they are ! " 
 
 " Yes ; aren't they ? Have you a partner 
 for the next waltz?" said Hetty, with an 
 upward, sidewise glance which was meant to 
 be extremely bewitching. 
 
 Poor Barton — anticipating his fate — longed 
 to be able to reply in the affirmative ; but as 
 he could not honourably do that, he said 
 lamely : 
 
 ''No. Have you? 
 
 " Well, I have," said she, with coy hesita- 
 tion, fingering the dainty cards in the siker 
 basket ; " but — but — The truth of the 
 matter is, Mr. Chance — " 
 
 " Yes ? " 
 
 " Well, I wish I hadn't, then ; for he is a 
 perfect little horror of a dervish. He dances 
 anyhow and anywhere — if you can call it 
 dancing — in fact, flings one all over the 
 place." 
 
 " Who is it ? " inquired Chance, peering 
 slyly round at Kate Harland, with a queer 
 smile brimming in his joyous eyes ; a smile 
 to which she, thoroughly comprehending the 
 situation, promptly responded with one of 
 her own. 
 
 " Why, it's young Carraway-Jones, don't
 
 248 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 you know? " sighed Hettj. *' The last time 
 I danced with him, at a ball in Redtown, we 
 both of us got giddy together and fell plump 
 into the lap of the man who was playing the 
 violin." 
 
 "The barbarian ! " cried Barton. " If I 
 were a girl and a fellow served me like that, 
 catch me ever dancing with him a second 
 time. Miss Hetty — unless, of course, there 
 was nobody else to be had." 
 
 " I'm sure I don't want to," replied Hetty, 
 with a little grimace. " And — and look here, 
 Mr. Chance " — very shyly — '' don't think me 
 quite too awfully bold, and — and all that, but 
 if you like to ask me for this waltz now, why, 
 I'll throw over Mr. Carraway-Jones before 
 I'm a minute older. There ! It is such a 
 shame to be obliged to put up with vile 
 partners when one has Coote and Thingumy's 
 music to dance to, don't you know," pouted 
 Hetty. 
 
 " With all my heart," said Barton, with 
 apparent heartiness. " I am indeed favoured. 
 Poor Carraway-Jones ! " 
 
 " I can easily say that I waited ever so 
 long for him and he never turned up, don't 
 you see," cried Hetty, with animation. 
 " Simple as ABC!" 
 
 " I must steer clear of him for the rest of
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 249 
 
 the evening," smiled Barton, " or who knows 
 what may happen, Miss Hetty ! " 
 
 " You needn't be anxious, Mr. Chance," 
 returned she, archly. '' I think, if you tried, 
 you could knock Mr. Jones into a cocked 
 hat. Don't be shocked — that is what pa 
 says sometimes. Here, ma dear, you look 
 after this " — popping down her programme- 
 basket upon Mrs. Pringle's knee ; that lady 
 having taken a vacant seat by Kate Harland's 
 side. 
 
 And the next minute Hetty had slipped 
 her arm under Barton Chance's and had led 
 him triumphantly off to join the waltz which 
 the band had just struck up. 
 
 "And so you walked here across the 
 bridge, Kate, Mr. Chance tells me ? " said 
 Mrs. Pringle. " How did you manage 
 that ? " 
 
 " Oh, the night was tolerably fine and 
 dry, and we changed our boots when we got 
 here," replied practical Kate, smiling. 
 
 " We are ' so far and yet so near,' ain't 
 we?" said Mrs. Pringle, with a fat chuckle at 
 her own pleasantry. 
 
 The passing years had dealt genially 
 enough with Mrs. Pringle and her prosper- 
 ous spouse. They looked, and behaved and 
 spoke, the pair of them, at this date of their
 
 250 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 lives, pretty mucli tbe same as they had 
 looked and behaved and spoken some seven- 
 teen or eighteen years gone by. Prosperity 
 is an excellent fattening recipe, and for keep- 
 ing, too, the wrinkles and crow's-feet at bay. 
 
 " I do not see Miss Dexter anywhere," 
 said Kate, raising her voice a tone or two, 
 for the waltz which the musicians were play- 
 ing was in parts a rather noisy one. " Has 
 she returned ? She told me before she went 
 to London that she would be back in time for 
 the dance, Mrs. Pringle." 
 
 Eoger, on the other side of Kate, pricked 
 up his ears. 
 
 " Eeturned ? Lor', yes ! She's returned 
 fast enough — come back the day before 
 yesterday. She knows where she's well off, 
 bless you ! " bawled Mrs. Pringle. " To tell 
 you the truth, though, Kate, neither me nor 
 the gurls, nor their par, for the matter of 
 that, would have fretted much if she hadn't 
 have come back at all. She gives herself too 
 many hairs and graces, and has too many 
 fine notions by half to please us ; and 
 paupers and governesses and such rubbish- 
 ing folk have no business to give themselves 
 such hairs beyond their station, I say. Sho 
 was dressing ever so long ago, I know for a 
 fact ; and so I suppose she'll come down-^
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 251 
 
 we invited her — when she has a mind to do 
 so. She pleases herself pretty much. How- 
 ever, there's one great point in her favour, 
 Kate ; she manages those children admirably, 
 and they are very fond of her, too. But 
 once let Louisa's complaint get well enough 
 to allow her to come back to England, and off 
 I pack Miss Stuck-up to — to — to wherever she 
 come from ; I shall have had quite enough of 
 her by then, I'll warrant. A holiday indeed ! 
 What did she want a holiday at all for ? She 
 only come in November," shouted Mrs. 
 Pringle, who had talked her florid counten- 
 ance into a flame, and whose bosom, rubies 
 and all, was heaving with the elocutionary 
 effort she had made. Mrs. Pringle' s English, 
 it was clear, was not strictly that known in 
 polite circles as the Queen's when she became 
 a trifle excited and gave free rein to her 
 tongue. 
 
 Eoger Harlan d, before his hostess had 
 ceased to speak, had got up and dis- 
 appeared. 
 
 A cloud since his arrival at the dance had 
 been brooding upon the features of Eoger. 
 But that cloud was now dispelled ; and he, 
 catching sight, through the revolving shapes 
 of the waltzers, of young Penfold of Pack- 
 house standing solitarily by the glass-doors
 
 252 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 of the conservatory, made "his way round to 
 him, tapped him on the back, and with him 
 had gone off to get some coffee. 
 
 '' What I am sitting here by this door for," 
 Mrs. Pringle presently went on to expound to 
 Kate, when she had in a measure recovered 
 her breath, vigorously fanning herself as she 
 spoke, ''is to receive Sir Garth Gilroy. He 
 is very late ; everybody has come but him ; 
 and — and I am almost beginning to despair 
 — Hi, Solomon ! " Mr. Pringle was in sight, 
 and his wife beckoned him with her glove. 
 Personally, Mr. and Mrs. Pringle were curi- 
 ously alike — some husbands and wives are so, 
 and with increasing years the resemblance 
 between them not infrequently grows more 
 and more striking. Mr. Pringle's red, 
 whiskerless face, however, was marked by 
 a purplish hue about the cheeks and gills. 
 
 The bulk of him was encased in a snow- 
 white dress-waistcoat, in the armholes of 
 which, as he advanced towards his wife, he 
 thrust his short flat thumbs ; so that a rope- 
 like gold chain and an immense glittering 
 locket were displayed to fine advantage. 
 
 " Well, mar, what is it ? " said^ he. " We 
 make a capital show here to-night, don't 
 we ? " — throwing a portly, self-satisfied 
 glance around the large and brilliant room.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 25B 
 
 " Yes, yes — but, Solomon, I am very 
 anxious ; how about Sir Grarth — do you 
 think he'll come ? I have done nothing but 
 stick about this door and the inner hall for 
 the last hour or more, and he hasn't arrived 
 yet. Do you think he'll keep his word ? 
 Oh, Solomon, if he shouldn't after all! — " 
 
 Mrs. Pringle actually trembled with sup- 
 pressed anxiety and apprehensiou. If Sir 
 Garth Gilroy of Woldney Moat failed in his 
 promise to honour with his company their 
 New Year dance, then — gay and hopeful as 
 was the aspect of everything at present — 
 nothing, in Mrs. Pringle' s opinion, could save 
 her ball from failure. 
 
 She had told everybody whom she could 
 tell that Sir Garth Gilroy was coming ; and 
 consequently everybody would expect to meet 
 him there. Should he fail to keep that 
 promise of his given weeks before the event- 
 ful night — oh, how everybody then would 
 laugh at her behind her back ! thought Mrs. 
 Pringle, growing cold all over at the bare 
 thought. '' Oh, Solomon," said she, in a 
 piteous undertone, " do you really think he 
 means to keep his word ? " 
 
 Mr. Pringle, standing with his short legs 
 somewhat ungracefully wide apart, winked 
 at his wife before he answered.
 
 254 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 '' He'll come, mar, never fear," lie chuckled. 
 " Don't fret yourself, my dear ; he'll be here 
 presently, as sure as eggs is eggs ! It may 
 be latish — I shouldn't wonder ; perhaps not 
 till supper. Strolling in late is fashionable 
 among the nobs. Still, some time or other 
 before cock-crow, you'll see, we shall have 
 my fine gentleman here. Oh, yes, mar, it's 
 all serene," said Mr. Pringle, actually putting 
 his finger to his nose as if he would intimate 
 that he knew somewhat more than he felt at 
 present justified in revealing. 
 
 Mrs. Pringle was reassured. 
 
 Her husband's confident tone and knowing 
 air were comforting to her in the extreme. 
 Sir Garth of late had been a good deal at 
 Borough Mills ; and Solomon Pringle, in his 
 turn, had been seen a great many times at 
 Woldney Moat. Evidently, then. Sir Garth 
 Gilroy and the wealthy Solomon thoroughly 
 understood each other. 
 
 " Mr. Chance could tell us nothing about 
 Sir Garth's movements," said Mrs. Pringle, 
 more blithely ; " for he tea'd and dressed at 
 the Little Mills, it seems, and came over with 
 the Harlands afterwards — didn't I understand 
 him to say so, Kate ? " laying a beef -red hand 
 scintillating with brilliants upon Kate's white 
 silk sleeve.
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 255 
 
 " Quite right," answered Kate, quietly ; 
 and resumed tlie chat she was engaged in 
 at the moment with the person who sat upon 
 her left ; who had taken the seat lately vacated 
 by her brother. 
 
 " I was talking to Master Roger not a 
 second ago, Miss Kate," observed Mr. 
 Pringle, in a loud and would-be patronising 
 voice. " Him and young Penfold were 
 having some coffee and a cigar together. I 
 offered to find them both pardners, but neither 
 of 'em, it appears, cares for 'ops ; though 
 there's more 'an one young leddy as I can 
 see a-setting about and tapping her foot cyi 
 the floor to the tune o' rum-tum-tiddy as 
 would be glad if they'd come aud ask her. 
 Ha, ha, ha ! " laughed Mr. Pringle, rolling 
 his full bull-eyes on Kate in a highly facetious 
 manner. 
 
 " My brother never cared much for dan- 
 cing, Mr. Pringle — balls always bore him," 
 replied Kate, coldly. She turned again to 
 the guest on her left and put her dance-card 
 into his hand. 
 
 " Though I cannot comply with your 
 request to give you one immediately, Mr. 
 Payne," said she, " you may take whichever 
 you please after the next two or three — " 
 
 " Give me the one before thupper. Miss
 
 256 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Harland — do ! " interrupted Mr. Payne in a 
 pleading tone. " That will be real kindness.'* 
 
 Mr. Headstone Payne, the active young 
 Coverley surgeon, was a genial young man 
 witli a bald head, a remarkably clear com- 
 plexion, and a handsome brown moustache 
 under a large Roman nose ; altogether a 
 dapper bachelor doctor, worsbipped by bis 
 lady-patients of all " sets " and " cliques." 
 For he was ever cheery, ever ready to gossip, 
 and, best of all, was always sure to be in 
 possession of the latest local on dits and 
 choicest bits of scandal which might happen 
 to be common property in Coverley-on-Dane. 
 
 Indeed, apart from his little weaknesses — 
 amongst which must be reckoned a slightly 
 affected occasional lisp — he was said to be a 
 very clever young man ; not only socially, 
 but also in the mysteries of his profession. 
 But Kate Harland liked him chiefly on 
 account of his well-known kindness to the 
 poor. He would always physic them " for 
 nothing." . 
 
 " I am sorry that T cannot give you the 
 one before supper," answered Kate, gravely ; 
 " it is already promised. But take the 
 seventh if you will — it is a quadrille. And 
 now," added she, in a hurried whisper — •' be 
 good enough to gratify a whim of mine. I
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 257 
 
 want to examine those pretty Chinese lanterns 
 in the conservatory. Will you be my escort, 
 Mr. Payne ? The waltz is finished and we 
 can now cross the room." 
 
 '' With all the pleasure in life," cried he. 
 And he sprang up and offered her his arm. 
 
 They were soon seated in the conservatory, 
 which was nearly opposite that doorway of 
 the ball-room close to which Mrs. Prinerle 
 still lingered and through which the chief 
 guest of the evening was momentarily 
 expected to enter. 
 
 " Confeth now," said Mr. Payne, con- 
 fidentially, " that you are not in the least 
 desirous to examine these trumpery lamps 
 and silly little fountains that only trickle and 
 won't play — because, you know, they were 
 all exactly the thame this time last year when 
 we were here. Confeth now. Miss Harland, 
 that you wanted to get away from that insuf- 
 ferable old — " 
 
 " I shall confess nothing of the kind," in- 
 terrupted Kate ; but she buried her lips in 
 Barton's flowers. " I am not going to hear 
 you abuse our host and entertainer, Mr. 
 Payne." 
 
 *' Believe me. Miss Harland, I have no wish 
 to—" 
 
 " Yery well, then wo won't speak of him ; 
 
 VOL. 1. s
 
 258 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 we will talk of something else. Tell me the 
 truth. Am I keeping you from the side of 
 any lady who perhaps at this instant is 
 anxiously watching for your approach? If 
 so, do your duty like a man, Mr. Payne, and 
 go to her ! " 
 
 *' On the contrary — there is no one. Like 
 your brother, I am not remarkable for my 
 skill in a ball-room ; at a pinch, though, I 
 can manage a polka or a quadrille. I in- 
 finitely prefer looking on, I do assure you — 
 for instance, sitting here with you. Miss 
 Harland, and quizzing, from this jolly nook 
 amongst the flowers, the odd assemblage 
 of — " 
 
 " I am not quizzing," protested Kate, in- 
 dignantly. '* Please speak for yourself, Mr. 
 Payne ! If you are going to be ill-natured I 
 won't listen to you." 
 
 " I ill-natured ? Never ! " returned the 
 chatty young surgeon, laughing. " I am 
 merely observant ; it's my nature so to be. 
 Now do have the justice to admit, Miss Har- 
 land, that it is a curiously assorted company 
 that is capering in that room yonder. There's 
 the jovial Coverley parson, the Eeverend 
 Felix Scamper, but — mark you — not Mrs. 
 Scamper. There're Tim and Phil Maltover, 
 but not the Miss Maltovers. There is Lawyer 
 Bilfil's son, but you will look in vain for the
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 259 
 
 Lawyer's daughters. There are the Reverend 
 Felix Scamper's fellow-curates of St. Eve's 
 — but then curates go everywhere — " 
 
 "Like doctors," interjected Kate, coolly. 
 "Do you know, Mr. Payne," she frankly 
 added, " that your remarks, to me, savour of 
 extreme impertinence ? " 
 
 " Do they really ? " replied he, as if the sug- 
 gestion struck him in the most novel light 
 conceivable. " I am very thorry. I do not 
 mean to be impertinent. Miss Harland, 'pon 
 my word I do not. But candidly," said Mr. 
 Headstone Payne, with unruffled good- 
 humour, " does it not amuse you to see 
 represented here to-night so many of the 
 cliques of the Coverley folk ? " 
 
 " And, pray, Mr. Payne, to which clique 
 do you flatter yourself that you belong ? " in- 
 quired Kate, eyeing with a queer smile her 
 companion of the hour. 
 
 He shrugged his shoulders, with eyebrows 
 raised. 
 
 " I ? Oh, I go everywhere and anywhere, 
 as you justly remarked just now," said he, 
 laughing again. " A bachelor doctor in a 
 small country town where, in point of popu- 
 lation, there are about a score or more of 
 women to every man, is at all times and 
 seasons in great request, I find." 
 
 " A conceited, well-to-do young man like
 
 260 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 yon, Mr. Payne, should make haste to find a 
 wife. A married doctor's position, in a place 
 like Coverley, is at once an assured thing. 
 If you were married, now, you could attach 
 yourself and your wife to just whichever 
 particular ' set ' you pleased — and stick to 
 it," said Kate with the utmost gravity. 
 
 " If I could only meet with a lady in every 
 respect as charming as yourself, Miss Har- 
 land, I would not remain a bachelor doctor 
 another — " 
 
 " If you are going to make yourself ridicu- 
 lous, Mr. Payne, I leave you this instant. I 
 can't stand compliments — particularly foolish 
 ones — from anybody." 
 
 " Well, it is rather rough on me, I must 
 say, to call me conceited," smiled Headstone 
 Payne, more imperturbably good-tempered 
 than ever. '' Pirst, I am told that I am im- 
 pertinent ; and then — Stay ! is that Mrs. 
 Porkbury from Redtown ? Surely, yes — 
 yonder there, speaking now to Mr. Pringle. 
 That enormously stout person with a large 
 high nose ; with sunflowers, I think, on her 
 head ? " 
 
 "Yes; that is certainly Mrs. Porkbury," 
 said Kate, following the direction which Mr. 
 Payne's quick eyes had taken. 
 
 " And yes — great heaven ! There are the
 
 tlKE LOST SHEEt>. 261 
 
 Carraway-Joneses, the bone-maaure people 
 from Margrave," cried Headstone, excitedly 
 — *' of all people in the world ! " 
 
 '' And why, pray, should they not be 
 here ? " 
 
 " Fanthy, though ! " said Headstone 
 vaguely, with another shrug. 
 
 " For my part," said Kate, equably, '' I 
 consider the Porkburys and th^ Carraway- 
 Joneses every whit as presentable as the 
 Maltovers, or the Bilfils, or the Singletons, 
 or, for the matter of that, as any of your 
 Coverley little big folk, as my friends Miss 
 Bishop and Miss Eager so playfully designate 
 that especial Coverley ' set.' Do you know 
 Miss Bishop and Miss Eager, Mr. Payne ? " 
 inquired Kate, slily. 
 
 "Ah, do I not!" answered Headstone, 
 with a gay sly glance in return. " Some- 
 times, of an afternoon, they give me a cup of 
 tea, and tell me all the news that's afloat — " 
 
 " And what they don't happen to know, I 
 suppose, you tell them," said Kate. *' Is 
 that it?" 
 
 *' Exchange is no robbery, you know, Miss 
 Harland," replied Mr. Headstone Payne, with 
 a roguish twinkle in his bright shrewd eyes. 
 " Oh, by-the-bye, have you heard the latest 
 joke about Miss Snaffle and the Reverend
 
 262 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 Felix Scamper? It beats that one about the 
 sausage supper and the hot grog and the 
 Vicar popping in unexpectedly at the Cottage 
 Hospital, and the bellth upstairs ringing like 
 mad — " 
 
 " Stop — do ! " whispered Kate, peremp- 
 torily. 
 
 At that instant the Reverend Felix 
 Scamper himself, laughing and joking in 
 most unclerical fashion with the girl on 
 his arm — who was, in fact, none other than 
 Hetty Pringle — entered the conservatory by 
 the garden-door. Quickly following them 
 came Julia Pringle and Barton Chance, this 
 latter pair strolling up to Kate and her 
 cavalier. 
 
 Hapless Barton ! 
 
 He had escaped from the clutches of one 
 sister, it seemed, only to drift helplessly into 
 the toils of the other. 
 
 " What, Kate, not dancing ! " exclaimed 
 Jill, in her loud harsh way — " nor you either, 
 Mr. Payne ! My word ! you are a couple of 
 lazy ones." 
 
 '' We are perfectly cool and comfortable, at 
 any rate," smiled Headstone Payne with 
 audacious serenity. '' It's deliciously pleasant 
 in thith corner here. Miss Pringle." 
 
 " Well, I am rather hot, I own," said Jill,
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 263 
 
 unfurling her big pink fan. " Don't I look 
 so ? " — a trifle anxiously. 
 
 " You do indeed," was Headstone's candid 
 reply. '' Still, I hope that you are enjoying 
 yourself, Miss Pringle ? " 
 
 " Awfully, thanks," replied Jill, emphati- 
 cally ; and she wiped the perspiration from 
 her matted " fringe." 
 
 Her face was beet-root colour ; so were her 
 arms, neck, and back — in short, all that her 
 decollete gown so unblushingly revealed. 
 Every atom of powder had disappeared from 
 her person ; and she was wondering as she 
 talked whether it would take her more than 
 a few minutes to rush upstairs and make good 
 all deficiencies — for Jill was instinctively 
 conscious that the delicate end of her left 
 eyebrow had gone somewhat astray with the 
 rest of her borrowed charms. 
 
 " I can recommend the claret-cup," she 
 went on. " It is one of the drinks, you know, 
 that pa prides himself upon brewing. You 
 must come and try it, Mr. Payne " — with a 
 broadly enticing downward glance at the 
 young surgeon. Julia had still more than 
 one unappropriated dance going a-begging on 
 her programme, and Headstone Payne had 
 not as yet requested the honour of Miss 
 Pringle's hand. Hetty's card, Jill knew, was
 
 264 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 already full — even her sister's " extra after- 
 supper ones," should there be time for any, 
 were all promised, and promised very likely 
 half-a-dozen times over. Indeed, there was 
 nothing Hetty enjoyed at a party so much as 
 creating ill-blood and confusion amongst the 
 numerous candidates for her favour. If they 
 quarrelled about her — perhaps came to blows 
 afterwards — why so much the more delight- 
 ful, of course. 
 
 " Claret-cup ! " echoed Headstone, with 
 smiling immobility. " The mere idea ith 
 divinely refreshing. I won't forget it, Miss 
 Pringle.'' 
 
 Barton Chance was bending over Kate. 
 
 '' Kate, how much longer is this purgatory 
 to last ? When are you going to take com- 
 passion on me ? " said he, in a pathetic sotto 
 voce. 
 
 She looked straight upward into those god- 
 like " wet- violet " eyes of his ; and per- 
 ceiving that, so far, he had given her cause 
 neither for displeasure nor for pain, answered 
 with a bright and trustful smile : 
 
 '' Have patience ! Yery shortly I hope to 
 gratify you." 
 
 Just then there arose, together with the 
 sound of music which was about to strike up 
 again, a buzz of voices, murmurs of curiosity,
 
 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 265 
 
 accents of interest and astonishment, travel- 
 ling hither and thither amongst the crowd. 
 
 Two late arrivals, it would seem, had 
 appeared simultaneously in the principal 
 entrance of the Pringles' ball-room. A 
 slight, middle-aged man, in faultless evening 
 attire, with pale, clean-cut features, close- 
 cropped gray hair and trim black beard and 
 eyebrows ; and with him a woman, young, 
 very beautiful, and exquisitely dressed, and 
 with an air of perfect breeding about her 
 which at once caught the notice of all. 
 
 Her gown was a lovely mixture of palest 
 canary silk, canary tulle, and costly lace, gar- 
 landed most delicately with sprays of crimson 
 Virginia-creeper. A twisted necklace of 
 small pearls closely encircled her cream- 
 white throat. Pearl bracelets matched the 
 necklace. These were her sole ornaments, 
 save the blood-red leaves of the delicate plant 
 with which she had crowned the ripples of 
 her soft dark hair. ^" ' 
 
 " What a distinguished-looking couple ! " 
 
 " Wbo on earth are they ? " . 
 
 " Surely not husband and wife — she's too 
 young?" 
 
 " Migbt be father and daughter." 
 
 '' Look more like that than anything else." 
 
 " Never saw a lovelier face in all my life ! '* 
 
 VOL. I. T
 
 266 LIKE LOST SHEEP. 
 
 So from one to another ran the muttering 
 and the whispering amongst the stranger 
 guests who knew them not; whilst those 
 who did recognise these late arrivals were 
 staring their hardest and their widest at them 
 — almost, indeed, as if they had lost suddenly 
 the gift of speech and could not believe what 
 their eyes beheld. 
 
 Foremost in this division of astonished 
 ones were Mr. and Mrs. Pringle themselves 
 and their daughter Julia — Jill, in fact, stand- 
 ing there transfixed in the conservatory, 
 speechless and wroth, as she watched that 
 little comedy going forward upon the polished 
 floor opposite her. 
 
 At last the strapping Julia broke into a 
 harsh laugh. 
 
 "Upon my word I like her cheek — don't 
 you?" said she, coarsely, turning sharply to 
 Kate Harland, Barton Chance, and Mr. Head- 
 stone Payne. " That is Sir Garth Gilroy of 
 Woldney Moat, as you can see ; and the lady " 
 — sarcastically — " if you please, is a lady 
 from the schoolroom upstairs — -our gover- 
 ness, Miss Dexter 1 " 
 
 END or VOL. I.
 
 [Mabch, 1885, 
 
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