Bright swift tears sparkled in her golden-brown eyes. She dashed them away, and, taking the old woman's hands in hers, she said, with girlish archness,
"You must not hate me any more, Nurse Ellen, for 'Master George' and I are going to be very good friends."
"Hate you, my dear young lady!" said Mrs. Brookes, who was too old to blush externally, but who certainly felt like blushing. "How can you have such fancies? Who could hate you?"
"You--you dear, faithful old thing! But it's all right now; and, Nurse Ellen," she said, seriously, "I am sure we owe all this happy change to Mr. Felton. The moment I saw that man, I felt he had come to do good. By-the-by, my uncle tells me there is no news of Mr. Felton's son yet. I suppose you never saw him, nurse?"
"La, bless you, no, my dear. I never saw his father till the day he came here. Mr. Arthur was born in America."
"Did he ever come to England before? Did Mrs. Carruthers ever see him?"
"Never. He told his father he would see his aunt the first thing he did, and he never came anigh the place. I doubt he's a black sheep, Miss Carruthers."
"I hope not, for his father's sake, nurse."
And then Clare proceeded to make various arrangements with Mrs. Brookes, thinking the while: "Arthur Felton never was here. Mrs. Carruthers never saw him. For a moment I fancied he might have been Paul Ward."
"I wonder what I shall think of George Dallas?" thought Clare as she rode away from Poynings in the afternoon, having given Thomas the necessary orders. "I wonder what he will think of me? I dare say he does not like the idea of me much. Perhaps I should not like the idea of him, if he were in my place and I in his; but, as it is, I decidedly do."