Egremont, drying her eyes. 'But oh! Nuttie, I hope you will be a
wiser woman than your mother.'

'Come, don't go on in that way! Why, I've such advantages! I've
Miss Mary, and Aunt Ursel, and Mr. Spyers, and Mr. Dutton, and you,
you poor little thing, had nobody! One good thing is, we shall get
the water-soldier. Mr. Dutton needn't come, for he's like a cat, and
won't soil his boots, but Gerard is dying to get another look at the
old ruin. He can't make up his mind about the cross on one of the
stone-coffin lids, so he'll be delighted to come, and he'll get it
out of the pond for us. I wonder when we can go. To-night is choir
practice, and to-morrow is cutting-out day.'

Miss Headworth was not sorry that the small sociabilities of the
friends did not leave her alone with her niece all that evening, or
the next day, when there was a grand cutting-out for the working
party,--an operation always performed in the holidays. Miss
Headworth had of late years been excused from it, and it gave her the
opportunity she wanted of a consultation with Mr. Dutton. He was her
prime adviser in everything, from her investments (such as they were)
to the eccentricities of her timepieces; and as the cuckoo-clock had
that night cuckooed all the hours round in succession, no one thought
it wonderful that she should send a twisted note entreating him to
call as early as he could in the afternoon. Of course Nuttie's
chatter had proclaimed the extraordinary visitors, and it needed not
the old lady's dash under "on an anxious affair" to bring him to her
little drawing-room as soon as he could quit his desk. Perhaps he
hastened his work with a hope in his heart which he durst not
express, but the agitation on the usually placid face forbade him to
entertain it for an instant, and he only said, 'So our expedition has