"You are Mr. Marton, the new schoolmaster?" he said, greeting Nell's kind friend.
"I am, sir."
"I am glad to see you. I should have come to greet you yesterday, but I rode across the country to carry a message from a sick mother to her daughter in service some miles off, and have but just now returned. This is our young church-keeper? You are not the less welcome, friend, for her sake or for this old man's."
"She has been ill, sir, very lately," said the schoolmaster.
"Yes, yes; I know she has," he said. "There have been suffering and heartache here."
"Indeed there have, sir."
The little old gentleman glanced at the grandfather, and back again at the child, whose hand he took tenderly in his and held.
"You will be happier here," he said, "We will try, at least, to make you so. You have made great changes here already. Are they the work of your hands?"
"Yes, sir," said Nell.
"We will make some others—not better in themselves, but with better means, perhaps," said the Bachelor. "Let us see now, let us see."