nervous glances towards the widow, sat down
before her husband, the tea-urn, and the muffins.
We can picture her fine lace cap, with its
peachy ribbons, the frill on the hem of her cambric
gown just touching her ankles, the embroidered
clocks on her stockings, the rosettes on her
shoes, but not so easily the lilac shade of her
mild eyes, the satin skin, which still kept its
delicate bloom, though wrinkled with advancing
age, and the pale, sweet, puckered mouth,
that time and sorrow had made angelic while
trying vainly to deface its beauty.

The squire was as rugged as his wife was
gentle, his skin as brown as hers was white, his
grey hair as bristling as hers was glossed; the
years had ploughed his face into ruts and
channels; a bluff, choleric, noisy man he had been;
but of late a dimness had come on his eyes, a
hush on his loud voice, and a check on the
spring of his hale step. He looked at his
wife often, and very often she looked at him.
She was not a tall woman, and he was only a
head higher. They were a quaintly well-matched
couple despite their differences. She turned
to you with nervous sharpness and revealed her
tender voice and eye; he spoke and glanced
roughly, but the turn of his head was courteous.
Of late they fitted one another better than they
had ever done in the heyday of their youthful
love. A common sorrow had developed a
singular likeness between them. In former years
the cry from the wife had been, "Don't curb my
son too much!" and from the husband, "You
ruin the lad with softness." But now the idol
that had stood between them was removed, and
they saw each other better.

The room in which they sat was a pleasant
old-fashioned drawing-room, with a general
spider-legged character about the fittings;
spinnet and guitar in their places, with a great
deal of copied music beside them; carpet
tawny wreaths on blue; blue flutings on the
walls, and pale gilding on the furniture. A
huge urn, crammed with roses, in the open bay-
window, through which came delicious airs
from the garden, the twittering of birds settling
to sleep in the ivy close by, and occasionally
the pattering of a flight of rain-drops, swept to
the ground as a bough bent in the breeze.
The urn on the table was ancient silver, and
the china rare. There was nothing in the
room for luxurious ease of the body, but
everything of delicate refinement for the eye.

There was a great hush all over Hurly Burly,
except in the neighbourhood of the rooks.
Every living thing had suffered from heat for
the past month, and now, in common with all
nature, was receiving the boon of refreshed air
in silent peace. The mistress and master of
Hurly Burly shared the general spirit that was
abroad, and were not talkative over their tea.

"Do you know," said Mistress Hurly, at last ,
"when I heard the first of the thunder beginning
I thought it was—it was——"

The lady broke down, her lips trembling, and
the peachy ribbons of her cap stirring with great
agitation.

"Pshaw!" cried the old squire, making his
cup suddenly ring upon the saucer, "we
ought to have forgotten that. Nothing has
been heard for three months."

At this moment a rolling sound struck upon
the ears of both. The lady rose from her seat
trembling, and folded her hands together, while
the tea-urn flooded the tray.

"Nonsense, my love," said the squire;
"that is the noise of wheels. Who can be
arriving?"

"Who, indeed?" murmured the lady, reseating
herself in agitation.

Presently pretty Bess of the rose-leaves
appeared at the door in a flutter of blue ribbons.

"Please, madam, a lady has arrived, and says
she is expected. She asked for her apartment,
and I put her into the room that was got ready
for Miss Calderwood. And she sends her
respects to you, madam, and she'll be down with
you presently."

The squire looked at his wife, and his wife
looked at the squire.

"It is some mistake," murmured madam.
"Some visitor for Calderwood or the Grange.
It is very singular."

Hardly had she spoken when the door again
opened, and the stranger appeared—a small
creature, whether girl or woman it would be
hard to say—dressed in a scanty black silk dress,
her narrow shoulders covered with a white
muslin pelerine. Her hair was swept up to the
crown of her head, all but a little fringe hanging
over her low forehead within an inch of her
brows. Her face was brown and thin, eyes
black and long, with blacker settings, mouth
large, sweet, and melancholy. She was all head,
mouth, and eyes; her nose and chin were
nothing.

This visitor crossed the floor hastily, dropped
a curtsey in the middle of the room, and
approached the table, saying abruptly, with a soft
Italian accent:

"Sir and madam, I am here. I am come to
play your organ."

"The organ!" gasped Mistress Hurly.

"The organ!" stammered the squire.

"Yes, the organ," said the little stranger
lady, playing on the back of a chair with her
fingers, as if she felt notes under them. "It
was but last week that the handsome signor,
your son, came to my little house, where I have
lived teaching my music since my English father
and my Italian mother and brothers and sisters
died and left me so lonely."

Here the fingers left off drumming, and two
great tears were brushed off, one from each eye
with each hand, child's fashion. But the next
moment the fingers were at work again, as if
only whilst they were moving the tongue could
speak.

"The noble signor, your son," said the little
woman, looking trustfully from one to the other
of the old couple, while a bright blush shone
through her brown skin, "he often came to see
me before that, always in the evening, when the
sun was warm and yellow all through my little