The woman nodded. "She ain't bad, but old madam is the best. You ask to see old madam."
"Very well; and you will tell me the way to go?"
Yes, Betsy was so far won over, that she was willing to do this now.
But Mrs. Winn was a little alarmed when she heard that the Manor House was nearly five miles from Fairfield. Five miles seemed a moderate distance to Betsy, but Mrs. Winn had not walked so far for many years, and there was no railway or other conveyance that she could ride back. Betsy told her which way to go, and Mrs. Winn set out on her walk early the next morning, resolving to call at other suitable houses on the way, but chiefly concerned to reach the Manor House and see Mrs. Kennaway.
She was tired and spent when she at last reached the imposing looking mansion. But the thought of her children made her overcome the faintness that crept over her, and she rang the bell, half hoping the servant would ask her inside the cool hall, to wait while he took her card and message to his mistress.
But this splendid footman looked at her almost as suspiciously as Betsy Gunn had done, and then told her to wait outside on the steps, if she could not leave her card and call again.
"Call again!" Why, it would take her all day to get home again she feared, tired as she was. So she stepped back to the top of the terrace steps and waited—waited until she thought the man must surely have forgotten her. And she was just going to ring the bell again, when the door was thrown open and her card handed back to her.
"Madam does not see strangers," he said pompously.
And then the door was closed, and the visit to the Manor House, upon which she had built so many hopes, was over. And she could only turn and walk down the smooth white marble steps, wondering how far she should be able to walk before she fell down utterly exhausted.
Presently she reached a shady knoll where she could sit down and rest; and while she rested, she wondered what she was to do now, for the reception she had received had never been expected.