‘Well, Leah,’ demanded Lady Betty, rather sulkily, ’what is your business with Miss Garston?’

‘My business is with you, Lady Betty,’ returned the woman good-humouredly.  ’Master came in just now and asked where you were; I think he told Miss Darrell that it was too late for you to be out walking:  so Miss Darrell said she believed you were at the White Cottage, for she saw your muff lying on Miss Garston’s table; so she told me to step up here, as it was too dark for you to walk alone, and I was to tell you that they would be waiting dinner.’

‘It is just like her interference,’ muttered Lady Betty.  ’But I suppose there would be a pretty fuss if I let the dinner spoil.  Help me on with my jacket, Leah; as you have come when no one wanted you, you had better make yourself useful.’

She spoke with the peremptoriness of a spoiled child, but the woman smiled pleasantly and did as she was bid.  She seemed a civil sort of person, evidently an old family servant.  Something had struck me in her speech.  Miss Darrell had seen Lady Betty’s muff, and knew of her presence in the cottage, and yet she had made no remark on the subject; this seemed strange, but would she not wonder still more at my silence?

‘Lady Betty,’ I said hastily, as this occurred to me, ’your cousin will think it odd that I never spoke of you this afternoon; but you ran out of the room so quickly, and then I forgot all about it.’

’Oh, Etta will know I was only playing at hide-and-seek.  Most likely she will think I bound you to secrecy.  What a goose I was to leave my muff behind me,—­the very one Etta gave me, too! why, she would see a pin; nothing escapes her:  does it, Leah?’

’Not much, Lady Betty:  she has fine eyes for dust, I tell her.  The new housemaid had better be careful with her room.  Now, ma’am, if you are ready?’

‘Good-bye, Miss Garston; we shall meet to-morrow,’ returned Lady Betty, standing on tiptoe to kiss me, and as they went out I heard her say in quite a friendly manner to Leah, as though she had already forgotten her grievance,—­

‘Is not Miss Garston nice, Leah?  She has got such a kind face.’  But I did not hear Leah’s reply.

I had not seen the last of my visitors, for about an hour afterwards, as I was finishing a long chatty letter to Jill, there was the sharp click of the gate again, and Uncle Max came in.

‘Are you busy, Ursula?’ he said apologetically, as I looked up in some surprise.  ’I only called in as I was passing.  I am going on to the Myers’s:  old Mr. Myers is ill and wants to see me.’  But for all that Max drew his accustomed chair to the fire, and looked at the blazing pine-knot a little dreamily.

‘You keep good fires,’ was his next remark.  ’It is very cold to-night:  there is a touch of frost in the air; Tudor was saying so just now.  So you have had the ladies from Gladwyn here this afternoon?’

‘How do you know that?’ I asked, in a sharp pouncing voice, for I was keeping that bit of news for a tidbit.