"What was the name of the old abbey?" asked the gentleman.
"I don't know, sir; but them ruins are part of the chapel called the Chapel of the Holy Ghost. It's a wonderful name."
For nearly ten minutes the gentleman listened with great interest to the old countryman's account, then suddenly remembering the object of his visit in this part of the world, he looked at his watch, and exclaimed—
"I fear I must be satisfied with what I have heard for the present, for I have still some distance to walk. Pray excuse my leaving you so suddenly," he added, as he placed a silver coin in the old man's hand, "and thank you very much for your information."
The gentleman raised his hat to the homely countryman with such true politeness, that the old man stood with uncovered head for some moments while the wind scattered his white locks, watching the stranger's departure.
"He be a true genelman, he be; us doan't get much o' they foine manners hereabouts, 'cepting wi' the reel gentry."
At a turn of the ascent leading from the station to the coach road appeared a board fastened to a tree, and upon it the representation of a hand with the finger pointing, and the words "To Meadow Farm." This information was at the time of which we write very little needed to tell the residents in the locality the whereabouts of the old homestead, yet it still remained in its half-decayed state, fastened to the trunk of a tree.
Decayed as it might be, it was very useful to the railway traveller, who, following its friendly finger, turned into the high road a few minutes after Mary and her cousin Sarah had entered it from the fields by climbing the stile.
At a bend in the road the gentleman came suddenly in sight of the two ladies as they advanced towards him—not near enough, however, for him to discover whether they were strangers or acquaintances.
Perhaps the change from winter to spring attire in Mary Armstrong's dress, and her unexpected appearance at such a distance from Meadow Farm, caused an impression that the younger lady was a stranger, and of the elder he had no recollection.