"You are looking at the statues?" she said, with half a laugh. "They are an idea of father's. He wants to have them painted, but I always stand out against that--they look so much better as they are."

"Painted?" answered Ferdinand, with a little grimace, and a little lifting of the hands and shrinking of the body as if the idea hurt him physically. "Oh no. Pray don't have them painted."

"Well, well. Theer!" cried Fuller. "Here's another as is in favor o'

grime an' slime! It's three to three now. Ruth and Reuben have allays been for leavin' 'em i' this way."

"Really, Mr. Fuller," said Ferdinand, "you must be persuaded to leave them as they are. As they are they are charming. It would be quite a crime to paint them. It would be horribly bad taste to paint them!"

After this partisan espousal of her cause, he was a little surprised to notice an indefinable but evident change in the rustic beauty's manner.

Perhaps she disliked to hear a stranger accuse her father--however truly--of horribly bad taste, but this did not occur to Ferdinand, who had intended to show her that a gentleman was certain to sympathize with whatever trace of refinement he might discover in her.

"Would it?" said Fuller, simply. "Well, theer's three of a mind, and they'm likely enough to be right. Anny ways theer's no danger of a brush coming anigh 'em while the young missis says 'No.' Her word's law i'

this house, and has been ever since her was no higher than the table."

"Wasn't that a ring at the front door?" asked Sennacherib, holding up his hand.

"Run and see, wench," said Fuller.

Ruth ran down the gra.s.s-plot and into the house. She neither shuffled nor ambled, but skimmed over the smooth turf as if she moved by volition and her feet had had nothing to do with the motion. She had scarce disappeared, when Isaiah, who faced the green door, sung out,

"Here's Ezra Gold, and bringin' a fiddle, too. Good-evenin', Mr. Gold.

Beest gooin' to tek another turn at the music?"

"No," said Ezra, advancing. "I expected to find Reuben here. I've got it on my mind as the poor old lady here "--he touched the green baize bag he carried beneath his arm--"is in a bit o' danger o' losin' her voice through keeping silence all these length o' years, and I want him to see what sort of a tone her's got left in her."

Reuben rose from his seat with sparkling eyes and approached his uncle.

"Is that _the_ old lady I've heard so much about?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Ezra, "it's the old lady herself. I don't know," he went on, looking mildly about him, "as theer's another amateur player as I'd trust her to. Wait a bit, lad, while I show her into daylight."

Reuben stood with waiting hands while the old man unknotted the strings at the mouth of the green baize bag, and all eyes watched Ezra's lean fingers. At the instant when the knot was conquered and the mouth of the bag slid open, Ruth's clear voice was heard calling,

"Father, here's Aunt Rachel! Come this way, Aunt Rachel. We're going to have a little music."

CHAPTER VI.

Ezra Gold, seizing the violin gently by the neck, suffered the green baize bag to fall to the ground at his feet, and then tenderly raising the instrument in both hands, looked up and dropped it to the ground. A little cry of dismay escaped from Reuben's lips, and he was on his knees in an instant.

"She's not hurt," he said, examining the violin with delicate care-- "not hurt at all."

Then he looked up, and at the sight of his uncle's face rose swiftly to his feet. The old man's eyes were ghastly, and his cheeks, which had usually a hectic flush of color too clear and bright for health, were of a leaden gray. Ezra's hand was on his heart.

"Not hurt?" he said, in a strange voice. "Art sure she's not hurt, lad?

That's fortunate."

The color came back to his face as suddenly as it had disappeared.

"No," said Reuben, tapping the back of the fiddle lightly with his finger-tips, and listening to the tone, though he kept his eyes fixed upon his uncle's--"she's as sound as a bell."

"That's well, lad, that's well," said Ezra, in the same strange voice.

The hands he reached out towards his nephew trembled, and Reuben handed back the precious instrument in some solicitude. It was natural that an old player should prize his favorite instrument, but surely, he thought, a little chance danger to it should scarcely shake a man in this way.

Ezra's trembling hands began to tune the strings, and at the sound of Ruth's voice Reuben turned away. His uncle's agitation shocked him. He had known for years, as everybody had known, that Ezra had but a weakly const.i.tution, but he had never seen so striking a sign of it before, and the old man's agitation awoke the young man's fears. There was a very close and tender affection between them.

"Reuben," Ruth was saying, "this is my aunt Rachel. Aunt, this is Mr.

Reuben Gold. I don't suppose you remember him."

"I do not remember Mr. Reuben Gold," said the little old lady, mincingly. "Is Mr. Gold a native of Heydon Hay? I do not think, from Mr.

Gold's appearance, that he was born when I quitted the village. I think I recognize my old friends, the Elds," she went on, with an air almost of patronage. "This will be Mr. Isaiah? Yes! I thought so. Mr. Isaiah was always mild in manner. And this will be Mr. Sennacherib? Yes! Mr.

Sennacherib was unruly. I recognize them by their expressions."

"You remember me, Rachel?" said Mr. De Blacquaire, who had been watching the old lady since her arrival. She turned her head in a swift, bird-like way, and fixed her curiously youthful eyes upon him for an instant. The withered old face lit up with a smile which so transfigured it that for the moment it matched the youth of her eyes.

"Is it possible!" she cried. "Mr. Ferdinand! The dear, dear child!" She seized one of his hands and kissed it, but he drew it away, and putting an arm about her shoulders, stooped to kiss her wrinkled cheek. "The grandson," she cried, turning on the others with an air of pride and tender triumph, "of my dear mistress, Lady De Blacquaire. I nursed Mr.

Ferdinand in his infancy. I bore him to the font, and in my arms he received his baptismal appellation."

If she had laid claim to the loftiest of worldly distinctions she could scarcely have done it with a greater air of pride.

Ezra's tremulous fingers were still at work at the violin keys when Ruth addressed him.

"I dare say you know my aunt Rachel, Mr. Gold," she said. "Heydon Hay was such a little place five-and-twenty years ago that everybody must have known everybody."

"It was my privilege to know Miss Blythe when she lived here," said Ezra, looking up and speaking in a veiled murmur.

The little old lady started, turned pale, drew herself to her full height, and turned away. Sennacherib, who was watching the pair, drove out his clinched fist sideways with intent to nudge his brother Isaiah in the ribs, to call his attention to this incident as a confirmation of the history he had told the night before. He miscalculated his distance, and landed on Isaiah's portly waistcoat with such force that the milder brother grunted aloud, and, arising, demanded with indignation to know why he was thus a.s.saulted. For a mere second Sennacherib was disconcerted, but recovering himself, he drew Isaiah on one side and whispered in his ear,

"I on'y meant to gi'e thee a nudge, lad. Dost mind what I tode thee about 'em? Didst tek note how they met?"

"Thinkest thou'rt th' only man with a pair of eyes in his head?"

demanded Isaiah, angrily and aloud. Sennacherib, by winks and nods and gestures, entreated him to silence, but for a minute or two Isaiah refused to be pacified, and sat rubbing at his waistcoat and darting looks of vengeance at his brother. "Punchin' a man at my time o' life i'

that way!" he mumbled wrathfully; "it's enough t' upset the systim for a month or more."

n.o.body noticed the brethren, however, for the other members of the little party had each his or her preoccupation.

"Mr. Ferdinand," said Miss Blythe, turning suddenly upon the young gentleman, "I must seize this opportunity to ask what news there is of my dear mistress. I know that she is frail, and that correspondence would tax her energies too severely, but I make a point of writing to her once a week and presenting to her my respectful service."

She took his hand again as she addressed him, and Ferdinand noticed that it was icy cold. She was trembling all over and her eyes were troubled.

He was just about to answer when a sharp tw.a.n.g caught his ear, and turning his head he saw Ezra in the act of handing the violin to Reuben.

"Have you got a fourth string, lad?" asked Ezra, speaking unevenly and with apparent effort; "this has gi'en way. I'm no hand at a fiddle nowadays," he added, with a pitiable smile, "or else there's less virtue in catgut than there used to be."

"They make nothing as they used to do," said Reuben. He had drawn a flat tin box from his pocket and had selected a string from it, when Rachel drew Ferdinand on one side.

"Let me bring you a chair, Mr. Ferdinand," she said. "We will sit here and you must tell me of my dear mistress."

"Stay here," said Ferdinand, "I will bring you a chair." He was not sorry to be seen in this amiable light. It was agreeable to bend condescendingly to his grandmother's attached and faithful servitor, and to be observed. There was a genuine kindliness in him, too, towards the little withered old woman who had nursed him in his babyhood, and had taught him his first lessons. He brought the chairs and sat down with his old nurse at the edge of the gra.s.s-plot at some little distance from the others.