Roger was very kind to her, taking her by the hand, and bidding her sit down, and telling her how glad he was to find that she was comfortably settled with her aunt.  ’We were all alarmed, of course, when you went away without telling anybody where you were going.’

‘Grandfather’d been that cruel to me that I couldn’t tell him.’

‘He wanted you to keep your word to an old friend of yours.’

’To pull me all about by the hairs of my head wasn’t the way to make a girl keep her word;—­was it, Mr Carbury?  That’s what he did, then;—­and Sally Hockett, who is there, heard it.  I’ve been good to grandfather, whatever I may have been to John...