'The man I saw on the Fell looked at least a hundred. I wish you could
tell me who he is; I feel a morbid curiosity about him.'

He went on to describe the old man in the grey coat, as minutely as he
could, dwelling on every characteristic of that singular-looking old
person; but Samuel Barlow could not identify the description with any
one in Grasmere. Yet a man of that age, seen walking on the hill-side at
eight in the morning, could hardly have come from far afield.




CHAPTER XX.

LADY MAULEVRIER'S LETTER-BAG.


Although Maulevrier had assured his grandmother that John Hammond would
take flight at the first warning of Lesbia's return, Lady Maulevrier's
dread of any meeting between her granddaughter and that ineligible lover
determined her in making such arrangements as should banish Lesbia from
Fellside, so long as there seemed the slightest danger of such a
meeting. She knew that Lesbia had loved her fortuneless suitor; and she
did not know that the wound was cured, even by a season in the
little-great world of Cannes. Now that she, the ruler of that
household, was a helpless captive in her own apartments, she felt that
Lesbia at Fellside would be her own mistress, and hemmed round with the
dangers that beset richly-dowered beauty and inexperienced youth.

John Hammond might be playing a very deep game, perhaps assisted by