As once before, when the doctor visited her, Joey Ferris was busy in the garden, cutting off dead blooms. Her little boys busily waited on her, each with his small barrow, in which they collected the faded flowers which she tossed upon the path, and ran off with them down the long walks to the rubbish heap, puffing and blowing to announce the fact of their being goods trains or expresses, or light engines, as the fancy took them.
It was nearly lunch time, and Ferris was going to bring home a man who had showed signs of interest in the lead-mine scheme. As the stable clock chimed a quarter to one, the mistress of Perley Hatch straightened her back, took off her gardening gloves, rubbed her nose reflectively, and wondered whether she "ought to change."
As the doubt crossed her mind, she looked up to see some one approaching across the grass, and with a vast surprise recognised Gaunt of Omberleigh.
"Why," cried she very heartily, advancing to meet him with hand outstretched, "I am glad to see you! Didn't think you knew your way to this house! What's the news this morning? Better, I hope?"
"It seems to be astonishingly good. The change of treatment and my wife's presence, taken together, have worked a miracle. The child, who was dangerously ill, is making marked progress every day."
"Oh, well, that is some consolation for you, isn't it?" said Joey, her eyes full of sympathy, and her voice almost tender. "I think you are just the most unselfish man I have ever heard of—letting Virgie go off like that!"
"Please, Mrs. Ferris——"
"It's no use please-Mrs.-Ferrising me! Some men in your place would have said things! First she herself falls ill, and then, just as your love and care has brought her round, off she goes and leaves you on the All-alone Stone! Percy has been on the point of riding over to try and persuade you to come to us for a bit of dinner, but he has been so taken up over his mine."
"You are more than kind, Mrs. Ferris. I fear I've been a most unneighbourly neighbour for many years. Now I am going to turn over a new leaf. As a preliminary, will you give me some lunch to-day? I want to talk to Ferris about his mine. Dr. Dymock was telling me something of it."
Joey was overjoyed. "Need you ask?" she joyfully inquired. "Come to the house and wash your hands, while I tell Daniel to take your horse round. I conclude you rode over?" She fixed her guest with her shrewd, twinkling glance, and thought that he had done something to himself, she hardly knew what. Was it that he wore a new, very well-cut riding suit, with tan gaiters, and that his hair was trimmed more sprucely than usual? Or was he really younger, when you saw him close, than he appeared from a distance? Certainly he had altered in some subtle fashion, and for the better. He did not look well, though. There were black marks under his eyes, as if he had not slept.