Gilbert Elgars Son

the child to give her a last good-night and make sure that she was none the worse for her fancied troubles of the afternoon. She returned after a short absence and joined the silent pair on the porch. She had been thinking all theafternoon of Dick and his father, and of the old days before The Meadows became so grand. It had been one of the places dear to her heart, years ago. She saw herself, a mere slip of a girl, going across the fields and over the stile ; sometimes alone, sometimes with Deborah, and, dearer still, sometimes with Gilbert, to take tea with Cousin Rebecca, Henry's mother. She remembered Deborah as she had been in the old days, a witty, quick-tempered girl, who it had been whispered about through the neighborhood, had cared for Henry and might have married him, but for the blight of cousinship. Then she thought of the lonely, sharp-voiced, energetic Deborah of to-day, who after Dick's mother's death had been asked to take up her abode and rule at Ivanw... --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.