'Is this house Ralph Hickson's?'
'It is,' said the young man, in a slow, deep voice. But he added no word further.
'This is his niece, Lois Barclay,' said the captain, taking the girl's arm, and pushing her forwards. The young man looked at her steadily and gravely for a minute; then rose, and carefully marking the page in the folio which hitherto had lain open upon his knee, said, still in the same heavy, indifferent manner, 'I will call my mother, she will know.'
He opened a door which looked into a warm bright kitchen, ruddy with the light of the fire over which three women were apparently engaged in cooking something, while a fourth, an old Indian woman, of a greenish-brown colour, shrivelled up and bent with apparent age, moved backwards and forwards, evidently fetching the others the articles they required.
'Mother,' said the young man; and having arrested her attention, he pointed over his shoulder to the newly-arrived strangers, and returned to the study of his book, from time to time, however, furtively examining Lois from beneath his dark shaggy eyebrows.
A tall, largely made woman, past middle life, came in from the kitchen, and stood reconnoitring the strangers.
Captain Holdernesse spoke.
'This is Lois Barclay, Master Ralph Hickson's niece.'
'I know nothing of her,' said the mistress of the house, in a deep voice, almost as masculine as her son's.
'Master Hickson received his sister's letter, did he not? I sent it off myself by a lad named Elias Wellcome, who left Boston for this place yester morning.'