"No one has seen him since eight o'clock
last Thursday morning."

"But I saw him at noon on Thursday,"
said Squire Hargreaves with a round oath.
"He came over the moors to tell me of his
aunt's death; and to ask me to give him a
little money to bury her, on the pledge of
his gold shirt-buttons. He said I was a
cousin, and could pity a gentleman in such
sore need. That the buttons were his mother's
first gift to him; and that I was to keep
them safe, for some day he would make his
fortune and come back to redeem them. He
had not known his aunt was so ill, or he
would have parted with these buttons sooner,
though he held them as more precious than he
could tell me. I gave him money; but I could
not find in my heart to take the buttons. He
bade me not tell of all this; but when a man
is missing it is my duty to give all the clue I
can."

And so their poverty was blazoned abroad!
But folk forgot it all in the search for the
Squire on the moor side. Two days they
searched in vain; the third, upwards of a
hundred men turned out hand-in-hand, step
to step, to leave no foot of ground unsearched.
They found him stark and stiff, with Squire
Hargreaves' money, and his mothers gold
buttons, safe in his waistcoat pocket.

And we laid him down by the side of his
poor Aunt Phillis.

After the Squire, John Marmaduke Morton,
had been found dead in that sad way on
the dreary moors, the creditors seemed to
lose all hold on the property; which indeed,
during the seven years they had had it, they
had drained as dry as a sucked orange. But
for a long time no one seemed to know who
rightly was the owner of Morton Hall and
lands. The old house fell out of repair;
the chimneys were full of starlings' nests;
the flags in the terrace in front were hidden
by the long grass; the panes in the windows
were broken, no one knew how or why, for
the children of the village got up a tale that
the house was haunted. Ethelinda and I
went sometimes in the summer mornings, and
gathered some of the roses that were being
strangled by the bind-weed that spread over
all; and we used to try and weed the old flower-
garden a little; but we were no longer young
and the stooping made our backs ache. Still
we always felt happier if we cleared but ever
such a little space. Yet we did not go there
willingly in the afternoons, and left the garden
always long before the first shght shade
of dusk.

We did not choose to ask the common
people—many of them were weavers for the
Drumble manufacturers, and no longer decent
hedgers and ditchers—we did not choose to
ask them, I say, who was squire now, or
where he lived. But one day, a great London
lawyer came to the Morton Arms, and made
a pretty stir. He came on behalf of a General
Morton, who was squire now, though he
was far away in India. He had been written
to, and they had proved him heir, though he
was a very distant cousin; farther back than
Sir John, I think. And now he had sent
word they were to take money of his that
was in England, and put the house in
thorough repair; for that three maiden sisters of
his, who lived in some town in the north,
would come and live at Morton Hall till his
return. So the lawyer sent for a Drumble
builder, and gave him directions. We thought
it would have been prettier if he had hired
John Cobb, the Morton builder and joiner,
he that had made the Squire's coffin, and the
Squire's father's before that. Instead, came a
troop of Drumble men, knocking and tumbling
about in the Hall, and making their jests
up and down all those stately rooms.
Ethelinda and I never went near the place till
they were gone, bag and baggage. And then
what a change! the old casement windows,
with their heavy leaded panes half overgrown
with vines and roses, were taken away, and
great staring sash windows were in their
stead. New grates inside; all modern, new-
fangled, and smoking, instead of the brass dogs
which held "the mighty logs of wood in the
old Squire's time. The little square Turkey
carpet under the dining table, which had
served Miss Phillis, was not good enough for
these new Mortons; the dining-room was
all carpeted over. We peeped into the old
dining-parlour; that parlour where the dinner
for the Puritan preachers had been laid
out; the flag parlour as it had been called of
late years. But it had a damp earthy smell,
and was used as a lumber-room. We shut the
door quicker than we had opened it. We
came away disappointed. The Hall was no
longer like our own honoured Morton Hall.

"After all, these three ladies are Mortons,"
said Ethelinda to me. "We must not forget
that: we must go and pay our duty to
them as soon as they have appeared in
church."

Accordingly we went. But we had heard
and seen a little of them before we paid our
respects at the Hall. Their maid had been
down in the village; their maid as she was
called now; but a maid-of-all-work she had
been until now, as she very soon let out when
we questioned her. However, we were never
proud; and she was a good honest farmer's
daughter out of Northumberland. What
work she did make with the Queen's English!
The folk in Lancashire are said to speak
broad; but I could always understand our
own kindly tongue, whereas when Mrs.
Turner told me her name, both Ethelinda and I
could have sworn she said Donagh, and were
afraid she was an Irishwoman. Her ladies
were what you may call past the bloom of
youth; Miss Sophronia—Miss Morton,
properly—was just sixty; Miss Annabella,
three years younger; and Miss Dorothy (or
Baby, as they called her, when they were by