‘But you don’t know,’ said I, ‘that Emily was charitable to her, with Ham’s help, long before she fled from home. Nor, that, when we met one night, and spoke together in the room yonder, over the way, she listened at the door.’

‘Mas’r Davy!’ he replied in astonishment. ‘That night when it snew so hard?’

‘That night. I have never seen her since. I went back, after parting from you, to speak to her, but she was gone.

I was unwilling to mention her to you then, and I am now; but she is the person of whom I speak, and with whom I think we should communicate. Do you understand?’

‘Too well, sir,’ he replied. We had sunk our voices,