By and by his hostess appeared to clear the things away. She was a little, withered old woman, with shrewd, kindly eyes, and a russet tinge in her cheeks.
“There’s a good light, and company in the sitting-room,” she said. “We’ve three young men staying with us. They’ve been up the Pike.”
“I’d sooner stay here, if I may,” replied Wyllard. “I don’t quite know yet if I’ll go on to-morrow. One can get through to Langley Dale by the Hause, as I think you call it?”
The wrinkled dame said that pedestrians often went that way.
“There are some prosperous folks—people of station—living round here?” Wyllard asked casually.
“There’s the vicar. I don’t know that he’s what you’d call prosperous. Then there’s Mr. Martindale, of Rushyholme, and Little, of the Ghyll.”
“Has any of them a daughter of about twenty-four years of age?” Wyllard described the girl he had met to the best of his ability.
It was evident that the landlady did not recognize the description, but she thought a moment.
“No,” she answered, “there’s nobody like that; but I did hear that they’d a young lady staying at the vicarage.”
She changed the subject abruptly, and Wyllard once more decided that the English did not like questions.