The boy paused. "You bain't obliged to pay nothing."
"What is the charge?" repeated Lady Level.
"The charge ain't nothing. If folks like to give anything, it's gived as a gift."
She smiled, and, taking out her purse, gave him half-a-crown. He received it with remarkable satisfaction, and then, with an air of great mystery and cunning, slipped it into his boot.
"But, I say, don't you go and tell, over there, as you gived it me," said he, jerking his head in the direction of the railway station. "We are not let take nothing, and there'd be the whole lot of 'em about my ears. You won't tell?"
"No, I will not tell," replied Lady Level, laughing, in spite of her cares and annoyances. And the promising young porter in embryo, giving vent to a shrill whistle, which might have been heard at the two-mile-off station, tore away as fast as his legs would carry him.
The girl came back with a quaint old lady. Her hair was white, her complexion clear and fresh, and her eyes were black and piercing as ever they had been in her youth. She looked in doubt at the visitor, as the servant had done.
"I am told that someone is inquiring for my lord."
"His wife is inquiring for him. I am Lady Level."
Had any doubt been wavering in the old lady's mind, the tones dispelled it. She curtseyed to the ground—the stately, upright, old-fashioned curtsey of the days gone by. A look of distress rose to her face.