It was with pleasurable fear that the girls got through the fence with his help.  They whispered to each other their self-excuses, saying that mamma would like them to be in their own fields as quickly as possible.

The moonlight was now gloriously bright.  The shrubs of the old garden, in full verdure, were mysteriously beautiful in the light.  The old house could be clearly seen.  Harkness led them across a narrow open space in front of it, that had once been a gravel drive, but was now almost green with weeds and grasses.  On the other side the bushes grew, as it seemed, in great heaps, with here and there an opening, moonlit, mysterious.  As they passed quickly before the house, the girls involuntarily shied like young horses to the further side of Harkness, their eyes glancing eagerly for signs of the old man.  In a minute they saw the door in an opening niche at the corner of the house; on its steps sat the old preacher, his grey hair shining, his bronzed face bathed in moonlight.  He sat peaceful and quiet, his hands clasped.  Harkness next led them through, a dark overgrown walk, and, true to his promise, brought them at once to the other fence.  He seemed to use the old paling as a gate whenever the fancy took him.  He pulled away two of the rotten soft wood pales and helped the girls gallantly on to their father’s property.

“Charmed, I’m sure, to be of use, ladies!” cried he, and he made his bow.

On the other side of their own fence, knee-deep in dry uncut grass, they stood together a few paces from the gap he had made, and proffered their earnest thanks.

“Say,” said Harkness, abruptly, “d’you often see Miss White up to your house?”

“Eliza, do you mean?” said they, with just a slight intonation to signify that they did not look upon her as a “Miss.”  Their further answer represented the exact extent of their knowledge in the matter.  “She didn’t come much for a good while, but last week she came to tea.  It is arranged for mamma to ask her to tea once in a while, and we’re all to try and be nice to her, because—­well, our sister says, now that people pay her attentions, she ought to have a place where she can come to, where she can feel she has friends.”

“How d’ye mean—­’pay her attentions’?”

“That was what we heard sister Sophia say,” they replied, pursing up their little lips.  They knew perfectly well what the phrase meant, but they were not going to confess it.  The arts of those who are on the whole artless are very pretty.

“Say, d’ye think Miss White’s got the least bit of a heart about her anywheres?”

“We don’t know exactly what you mean”—­with dignity—­“but one of the ladies who boards at the hotel told mamma that Eliza always behaves admirably’; that’s part of the reason we’re having her to tea.”

“Did she, though?  If having about as much feeling as this fence has is such fine behaviour—!” He stopped, apparently not knowing exactly how to end his sentence.