"Here he is," said Mrs. Arundel, raising her voice a little just to reach the anxious grandmother.
"Oh, dear, ma'am, I'm sure I beg pardon for him—a naughty boy! However did he come troubling you ladies?" said Mrs. Ross, coming near.
"Oh, never mind, he has been very good."
"I suppose it was this way. Molly, the girl, was off to church, and his grandfather was having a nap, and I must needs fall asleep too. I beg your pardon, ma'am. You see we're old folks to have him on us like; but it's all we can do for him that's gone," glancing at her black Sunday gown.
"Your son's child?" asked Mrs. Arundel kindly, sympathising with the trouble in the old woman's face.
"Yes, ma'am, our only one. His wife died when Alfy was a year old; and just a year after that, our boy went out one ugly night fishing, and a storm came on, and the boats came back without his!"
All eyes were turned on Mrs. Ross; and even Alfy looked sober. Seeing them silently ask for more, she went on.
"A few days afterwards we did find him, thank God; but our brave, handsome boy, you would not have known him, ma'am; and we laid him by his young wife up there under the trees where you went this morning; and then we took Alfy home to us altogether."
"I daresay it is a comfort in some ways," said Mrs. Arundel, looking at his pretty little face, and thinking of the sailor-father.
"Yes, ma'am," said Mrs. Ross hesitating, "it is in some ways; when I think of him that's gone it is. But we're getting old, father and me, and sometimes I'm afraid whether we look after him enough; and we haven't time or strength to be always at his heels. I am afraid for him if anything happened to us, or if he were to run wild. That's what our own Alfred never did, ma'am."