"Where is Gilly?"
"Just cleaning himself up a bit, and changing his working slop. He will be here in a minute. Don't wait for me, mother. I have the cows to milk. I can get my supper by and by."
The owner of the bright face vanished, Mrs. Rushmere poured out the tea, and the small party gathered about the table.
Gilbert came in presently—glanced coldly at the visitor, made a stiff country bow, and took a seat by his mother, and as far from Miss Watling as he possibly could. He never had liked her when plain Miss Nancy, but since she had got a handle to her name, her airs and affectations had filled him with disgust.
"Do you suffer that young person, Mrs. Rushmere, to call you mother?" asked Miss Watling, with a sneer upon her thin upper lip. "Surely it is taking too great a liberty."
"Oh, not at all. You forget, Nancy, that she is my adopted daughter, that I look upon her as my own child. The dear knows I could not love her better if she were."
"Well, my dear madam, there's no accounting for tastes." Nancy Watling thought that it was her turn to say something spiteful. "I see nothing to admire in that girl. Is she not the beggar's brat that Mr. Rushmere picked up upon the heath?"
"So she be," muttered Lawrence, half aloud from his own chair.
"No fault of hers," said Gilbert, flushing up. "She has beauty and sense enough to have been the daughter of a king."
"Rather a vulgar princess," giggled Miss Watling. "She looks what she was born to be—a servant!"