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JOHNNY LUDLOW.

THIRD SERIES

[Illustration]


JOHNNY LUDLOW

by

MRS. HENRY WOOD

Author of
"East Lynne," "The Channings," etc.

THIRD SERIES.







+Twenty-Third Thousand+

+London:+
Macmillan and Co., Limited.
New York: the Macmillan Company.
1899.

London:
Printed by William Clowes and Sons, Limited,
Stamford Street and Charing Cross.




CONTENTS

                                             PAGE

  THE MYSTERY OF JESSY PAGE                     1

  CRABB RAVINE                                 43

  OUR VISIT                                    87

  JANET CAREY                                 112

  DR. KNOX                                    135

  HELEN WHITNEY'S WEDDING                     158

  HELEN'S CURATE                              180

  JELLICO'S PACK                              203

  CAROMEL'S FARM                              223

  CHARLOTTE AND CHARLOTTE                     244

  THE LAST OF THE CAROMELS                    267

  A DAY IN BRIAR WOOD                         290

  THE STORY OF DOROTHY GRAPE: DISAPPEARANCE   313

  THE STORY OF DOROTHY GRAPE: IN AFTER YEARS  335

  LADY JENKINS: MINA                          359

  LADY JENKINS: DOUBT                         382

  LADY JENKINS: MADAME                        406

  LADY JENKINS: LIGHT                         429

  THE ANGELS' MUSIC                           452




    "God sent his Singers upon earth
    With songs of sadness and of mirth,
    That they might touch the hearts of men,
    And bring them back to heaven again."
                                   LONGFELLOW.




JOHNNY LUDLOW




THE MYSTERY OF JESSY PAGE.


I.

Our old grey church at Church Dykely stood in a solitary spot. Servant
maids (two of ours once, Hannah and Molly), and silly village girls went
there sometimes to watch for the "shadows" on St. Mark's Eve, and owls
had a habit of darting out of the belfry at night. Within view of the
church, though at some distance from it, stood the lonely, red-brick,
angular dwelling-house belonging to Copse Farm. It was inhabited by Mr.
Page, a plain worthy widower, getting in years; his three daughters
and little son. Abigail and Susan Page, two experienced, sensible,
industrious young women, with sallow faces and bunches of short dark
curls, were at this period, about midway between twenty and thirty:
Jessy, very much younger, was gone out to get two years' "finishing" at
a plain boarding-school; Charles, the lad, had bad health and went to
school by day at Church Dykely.

Mr. Page fell ill. He would never again be able to get about much. His
two daughters, so far as indoor work and management went, were hosts in
themselves, Miss Abigail especially; but they could not mount a horse to
superintend out-of-doors. Other arrangements were made. The second son
of Mr. Drench, a neighbouring farmer and friend, came to the Copse
Farm by day as overlooker. He was paid for his services, and he gained
experience.

No sooner had John Drench, a silent, bashful young farmer, good-looking
and fairly-well educated, been installed in his new post, than he began
to show a decided admiration for Miss Susan Page--who was a few months
younger than himself. The slight advances he made were favourably
received; and it was tacitly looked upon that they were "as good as
engaged." Things went on pleasantly through the spring, and might have
continued to go on so, but for the coming home at Midsummer of the
youngest daughter, Jessy. That led to no end of complications and
contrariety.

She was the sweetest flower you ever saw; a fair, delicate lily, with a
mild countenance, blue eyes, and golden hair. Jessy had never been very
strong; she had always been very pretty; and the consequence was that
whilst her sisters had grown up to be useful, not to be idle a minute
throughout the long day, Jessy had been petted and indulged, and
was little except being ornamental. The two years' schooling had not
improved her taste for domestic occupation. To tell the truth, Jessy was
given to being uncommonly idle.

To John Drench, who had not seen her since her early girlhood, she
appeared as a vision of beauty. "It was like an angel coming in at the
door," he said of the day she first came home, when telling the tale to
a stranger in after years. "My eyes were fairly dazzled."

Like an angel! And unfortunately for John Drench, his heart was dazzled
as well as his eyes. He fell desperately in love with her. It taught
him that what he had felt for Miss Susan was not love at all; only
esteem, and the liking that so often arises from companionship. He was
well-meaning, but inexperienced. As he had never spoken to Susan, the
utmost sign he had given being a look or a warmer handshake than usual,
he thought there would be no difficulty in transferring his homage to
the younger sister. Susan Page, who really loved him, and perhaps looked
on with the keen eyes of jealousy, grew at last to see how matters were.
She would have liked to put him in a corn-sack and give him a good
shaking by way of cure. Thus the summer months went over in some silent
discomfort, and September came in warm and fine.

Jessy Page stood at the open parlour window in her airy summer muslin,
twirling a rose in her hand, blue ribbons falling from her hair: for
Jessy liked to set herself off in little adornments. She was laughing at
John Drench outside, who had appeared covered with mud from the pond,
into which he had contrived partially to slip when they were dragging
for eels.

"I think your picture ought to be taken, just as you look now, Mr.
John."

He thought _hers_ ought to be: the bright fair face, the laughing blue
eyes, the parted lips and the pretty white teeth presented a picture
that, to him, had never had its equal.

"Do you, Miss Jessy? That's a fine rose," he shyly added. He was always
shy with her.

She held it out. She had not the least objection to be admired, even by
John Drench in an unpresentable state. In their hearts, women have all
desired men's flattery, from Eve downwards.

"These large roses are the sweetest of any," she went on. "I plucked it
from the tree beyond the grass-plat."

"You are fond of flowers, I've noticed, Miss Jessy."

"Yes, I am. Both for themselves and for the language they symbolise."

"What language is it?"

"Don't you know? I learnt it at school. Each flower possesses its own
meaning, Mr. John Drench. This, the rose, is true love."

"True love, is it, Miss Jessy!"

She was lightly flirting it before his face. It was too much for him,
and he took it gently from her. "Will you give it me?" he asked below
his breath.

"Oh, with great pleasure." And then she lightly added, as if to damp the
eager look on his face: "There are plenty more on the same tree."

"An emblem of true love," he softly repeated. "It's a pretty thought. I
wonder who invented----"

"Now then, John Drench, do you know that tea's waiting. Are you going to
sit down in those muddy boots and leggings?"

The sharp words came from Susan Page. Jessy turned and saw her sister's
pale, angry face. John Drench disappeared, and Miss Susan went out
again, and banged the door.

"It is high time Jessy was put to some regular employment," cried
Susan, bursting into the room where Miss Page sat making the tea. "She
idles away her time in the most frivolous and wasteful manner, never
doing an earthly thing. It is quite sinful."

"So it is," acquiesced Miss Page. "Have you a headache, Susan? You look
pale."

"Never mind my looks," wrathfully retorted Susan. "We will portion out
some share of work for her from to-day. She might make up the butter,
and undertake the pies and puddings, and do the plain sewing."

William Page, a grey-haired man, sitting with a stick by his side,
looked up. "Pretty creature!" he said, for he passionately loved his
youngest daughter. "I'll not have her hard-worked, Susan."

"But you'd not have her sit with her hands before her from Monday
morning till Saturday night, I suppose, father!" sharply returned Miss
Susan. "She'll soon be nineteen."

"No, no; idleness brings nothing but evil in its train. I didn't mean
that, Susan. Let the child do what is suitable for her. Where's John
Drench?"

"In a fine mess--up to his middle in mud," was Miss Susan's tart answer.
"One would think he had been trying to see how great an object he could
make of himself."

John Drench came in, somewhat improved, his coat changed and the rose in
his button-hole. He took his seat at the tea-table, and was more shy and
silent than ever. Jessy sat by her father, chattering gaily, her blue
ribbons flickering before his loving eyes.

But the butter-making and the other light work was fated not to be
inaugurated yet for Jessy. Charles Page, a tiresome, indulged lad of
twelve, became ill again: he was subject to attacks of low fever and
ague. Mr. Duffham, peering at the boy over his gold-headed cane, said
there was nothing for it but a dose of good seaside air. Mr. Page,
anxious for his boy, began to consult with his daughters as to how it
might be obtained. They had some very distant connections named Allen,
living at Aberystwith. To them Miss Page wrote, asking if they could
take in Charles and one of his sisters to live with them for a month or
so. Mrs. Allen replied that she would be glad to have them; since her
husband's death she had eked out a scanty income by letting lodgings.

It was Jessy who went with him. The house and farm could not have spared
Abigail; Susan said neither should it spare her. Jessy, the idle and
useless one had to go. Miss Susan thought she and John Drench were well
rid of the young lady.

September was in its second week when they went; November was at its
close when they returned. The improvement in Charles had been so marked
and wonderful--as Mrs. Allen and Jessy both wrote to say--that Mr.
Duffham had strongly urged his staying as long as the weather remained
fine. It was a remarkably fine late autumn that year, and they stayed
until the end of November.

Charles came home well and strong. Jessy was more beautiful than ever.
But there was some change in her. The light-hearted, talking, laughing
girl had grown rather silent: she was often heard singing snatches of
love songs to herself in a low voice, and there was a light in her eyes
as of some intense, secret happiness that might not be told. John
Drench, who had begun to show signs of returning to his old allegiance
(at least, Miss Susan so flattered herself), fell a willing captive
again forthwith, and had certainly neither eyes nor ears for any one but
Jessy. Susan Page came to the conclusion that a shaking in a sack would
be far too good for him.

                 *       *       *       *       *

The way of dressing the churches for Christmas in those past days was
quite different from the new style of "decoration" obtaining now. Sprays
of holly with their red berries, of ivy with its brown clusters, were
stuck, each alternately into the holes on the top of the pews. It was a
better way than the present one, far more effective--though I, Johnny
Ludlow, shall be no doubt laughed at for saying so. Your woven wreaths
tied round the pulpit and reading-desk; your lettered scrolls; your
artificial flowers, may be talked of as "artistic," but for effect they
all stand absolutely as nothing, in comparison with the more simple and
natural way, and they are, perhaps, the least bit tawdry. If you don't
believe me, pay a visit to some rural church next Christmas morning--for
the old fashion is observed in many a country district still--and judge
for yourselves. With many another custom that has been changed by the
folly and fashion of these later days of pretension, and not changed for
the better, lies this one. That is my opinion, and I hold to it.

The dressing in our church was always done by the clerk, old Bumford.
The sexton (called familiarly with us the grave-digger) helped him when
his health permitted, but he was nearly always ill, and then Bumford
himself had to be grave-digger. It was not much trouble, this manner of
decoration, and it took very little time. They had only to cut off the
sprays almost of the same size, trim the ends, and lodge them in the
holes. In the last century when a new country church was rebuilt (though
that did not happen often), the drilling of these holes in the woodwork
of the pews, for the reception of the "Christmas," was as much a matter
of course as were the pews themselves. Our Christmas was supplied by Mr.
Page with a liberal hand; the Copse Farm abounded with trees of holly
and ivy; one of his men, Leek, would help Bumford to cut it, and to cart
it in a hand-truck to the church. It took a good deal to do all the
pews.

On this Christmas that I am telling you of, it fell out that Clerk
Bumford and the sexton were both disabled. Bumford had rheumatic gout so
badly that getting him into church for the morning service the past
three Sundays had been a marvel of dexterity--while the sexton was in
bed with what he called catarrh. At first it seemed that we should
not get the church dressed at all: but the Miss Pages, ever ready and
active in a good work, came to the rescue, and said they would do it
themselves, with John Drench's help. The Squire was not going to be
behind-hand, and said we boys, for Tod and I were just home for the
holidays, should help too.

And when Christmas Eve came, and Leek had wheeled up the holly, and we
were all in the cold church (not I think that any of us cared whether it
was cold or warm), we enjoyed the work amazingly, and decided that old
Bumford should never be let do it again, gout or no gout.

Jessy Page was a picture to look at. The two elder ladies had on tight
dark cloth dresses, like a riding-habit cut short, at the ankles: Jessy
was in a bright blue mantle edged with swans-down, and a blue bonnet on
her pretty head. She came in a little late, and Miss Susan blew her up
sharply, for putting on that "best Sunday cape" to dress a church in:
but Jessy only laughed good-naturedly, and answered that she would take
care not to harm it. Susan Page, trimming the branches, had seen John
Drench's eyes fixed on the girl: and her knife worked away like mad in
her vexation.

"Look here," said Jessy: "we have never had any Christmas over the
pulpit; I think old Bumford was afraid to get up to do it; let us put
some. It would hide that ugly nail in the wall."

"There are no holes up in the wall," snapped Miss Susan.

"I meant a large bunch; a bunch of holly and ivy mixed, Susan. John
Drench could tie it to the nail: it would look well."

"I'll do it, too," said John. "I've some string in my pocket. The parson
won't know himself. It will be as good as a canopy over him."

Miss Page turned round: she and Charley had their arms full of the
branches we had been cutting.

"Put a bunch there, if you like, but let us finish the pews first," she
said. "If we go from one thing to another we shall not finish while it's
daylight."

It was good sense: she rarely spoke anything else. Once let darkness
overtake us, and the dressing would be done for. The church knew nothing
about evening service, and had never felt the want of means to light
itself up.

"I shall pick out the best sprays in readiness," whispered Jessy to me,
as we sat together on the bench by the big christening bowl, she
choosing branches, I trimming them. "Look at this one! you could not
count the berries on it."

"Did you enjoy your visit to Aberystwith, Jessy?"

I wondered what there was in my simple question to move her. The branch
of holly went anywhere; her hands met in a silent clasp; the expression
of her face changed to one of curious happiness. In answering, her voice
fell to a whisper.

"Yes, I enjoyed it."

"What a long time you stayed away! An age, Mrs. Todhetley says."

"It was nearly eleven weeks."

"Eleven weeks! How tedious!"

Her face was glowing, her eyes had a soft light in them. She caught up
some holly, and began scattering its berries.

"What did you do with yourself, Jessy?"

"I used to sit by the sea--and to walk about. It was very fine. They
don't often have it like that in November, Mrs. Allen said."

"Did Mrs. Allen sit and walk with you?"

"No. She had enough to do with the house and her lodgers. We only saw
her at meal times."

"The Miss Allens, perhaps?"

"There are no Miss Allens. Only one little boy."

"Why, then, you had no one but Charley!"

"Charley? Oh, he used to be always about with little Tom Allen--in a
boat, or something of that sort. Mrs. Allen thought the sea breezes must
be so good for him."

"Well, you must have been very dull!"

Jessy looked rather foolish. She was a simple-minded girl at the best.
The two elder sisters had all the strong sense of the family, she the
simplicity. Some people called Jessy Page "soft": perhaps, contrasted
with her sisters, she was so: and she was very inexperienced.

The dusk was gathering, and Charley had gone out tired, when John Drench
got into the pulpit to tie the bunch of holly to the wall above it. Tod
was with him. Drench had his hands stretched out, and we stood watching
them in a group in the aisle below, when the porch-door was burst open,
and in leaped Charles.

"Jessy! I say! Where's Jessy?"

"I am here," said Jessy, looking round. "What do you want?"

"Here's Mr. Marcus Allen."

Who Mr. Marcus Allen might be, Charles did not say. Jessy knew: there
was no doubt of that. Her face, just then close to mine, had flushed as
red as a June rose.

A tall, dark, imposing man came looming out of the dusk. His handsome,
furred great-coat was open, his waistcoat was of crimson velvet; he wore
two chains, three rings, and an eye-glass. And I'll leave you to judge
of the effect this vision of grandeur made, dropping down on us plain
church-dressers in our every-day clothes. John Drench leaned over the
pulpit cushion, string in hand; the two Miss Pages stood staring; Jessy
turned white and red with the unexpected amazement. It was to her he
approached, and spoke.

"How do you do, Miss Jessy?"

She put her hand out in answer to his; but seemed to have been struck as
dumb as the old stone image on the monument against the wall.

"These are your sisters, I presume, Miss Jessy? Will you do me the
honour of introducing me to them?"

"Mr. Marcus Allen," murmured Jessy. "My sister Abigail; my sister
Susan."

Mr. Marcus Allen, bowing over his hat, said something about the pleasure
it gave him to make their acquaintance personally, after hearing so much
of them from Miss Jessy at Aberystwith, and begged to be allowed to
shake their hands. Miss Page, when the hand-shaking was over, said in
her straightforward way that she did not know who he was, her young
sister never having mentioned him. Jessy, standing like a little
simpleton, her eyes bent down on the aisle bricks, murmured in confusion
that she "forgot it." John Drench had his face over the cushion all that
time, and Tod's arms began to ache, holding up the bunch of green.

Mr. Marcus Allen, it turned out, was related in some way to the Allens
of Aberystwith: he happened to go to the town soon after Jessy Page and
her brother went there, and he stayed until they left it. Not at the
Allens' house: he had lodgings elsewhere. Mrs. Allen spoke of him to
Jessy as a "grand gentleman, quite above them." An idea came over me, as
we all now stood together, that he had been Jessy's companion in the
walking and the sitting by the sea.

"I told Miss Jessy that I should be running down some day to renew my
acquaintanceship with her and make that of her family," said Mr. Marcus
Allen to Miss Page. "Having no particular engagement on my hands this
Christmas time, I came."

He spoke in the most easy manner conceivable: his accent and manner were
certainly those of a gentleman. As to the fashionable attire and the
rings and chains, rather startling though they looked to us in the
dark church on that dark and busy evening, they were all the rage for
dandies in the great world then.

Noticing the intimation that he had come purposely to see them, Miss
Page supposed that she ought, in hospitably good manners, to invite him
to stay a day or two at the farm, but doubted whether so imposing a
gentleman would condescend to do so. She said nothing about it then, and
we all went out of the church together; except John Drench, who stayed
behind with Leek to help clear up the litter for the man to carry away.
It was light outside, and I took a good look at the stranger: a handsome
man of seven-or-eight-and-twenty, with hard eyes, and black whiskers
curled to perfection.

"In what way is he related to the Allens of Aberystwith, Jessy?"
questioned Miss Page, drawing her sister away, as we went through the
coppice.

"I don't quite know, Abigail. He is some distant cousin."

"How came you never to speak of him?"

"I--I did not remember to do so."

"Very careless of you, child. Especially if he gave you cause to suppose
he might come here. I don't like to be taken by surprise by strangers;
it is not always convenient."

Jessy walked along in silence, meek as a lamb.

"What is he?--in any profession, or trade?"

"Trade? Oh, I don't think he does anything of that kind, Abigail. That
branch of the family would be above it, Mrs. Allen said. He has a large
income, she says; plenty of money."

"I take it, then, that he is above _us_," reasoned Miss Page.

"Oh dear, yes: in station. Ever so much."

"Then I'm sure I don't care to entertain him."

Miss Page went straight into the best kitchen on arriving at home. Her
father sat in the large hearth corner, smoking his pipe. She told him
about the stranger, and said she supposed they must ask him to stay over
the morrow--Christmas-Day.

"Why shouldn't we?" asked Mr. Page.

"Well, father, he seems very grand and great."

"Does he? Give him the best bedroom."

"And our ways are plain and simple, you know," she added.

"He must take us as he finds us, Abigail. Any friend of Mrs. Allen's is
welcome: she was downright kind to the children."

We had a jolly tea. Tod and I had been asked to it beforehand.
Pork-pies, Miss Susan's making, hot buttered batch-cakes, and lemon
cake and jams. Mr. Marcus Allen was charmed with everything: he was a
pleasant man to talk to. When we left, he and Mr. Page had gone to the
best kitchen again, to smoke together in the wide chimney corner.

                 *       *       *       *       *

You Londoners, who go in for your artistic scrolls and crosses, should
have seen the church on Christmas morning. It greeted our sight, as we
entered from the porch, like a capacious grove of green, on which the
sun streamed through the south windows. Old Bumford's dressing had never
been as full and handsome as this of ours, for we had rejected all
niggardly sprays. The Squire even allowed that much. Shaking hands with
Miss Page in the porch after service, he told her that it cut Clerk
Bumford out and out. Mr. Marcus Allen, in fashionable coat, with the
furred over-coat flung back, light gloves, and big white wristbands, was
in the Pages' pew, sitting between old Page and Jessy. He found all the
places for her in her Prayer-book (a shabby red one, some of the leaves
loose); bowing slightly every time he handed her the book, as if she had
been a princess of the blood royal. Such gallantry was new in our parts:
and the congregation were rather taken off their devotions watching it.
As to Jessy, she kept flushing like a rose.

Mr. Marcus Allen remained more than a week, staying over New-Year's Day.
He made himself popular with them all, and enjoyed what Miss Abigail
called their plain ways, just as though he had been reared to them. He
smoked his pipe in the kitchen with the farmer; he drove Miss Susan to
Alcester in the tax-cart; he presented Miss Abigail with a handsome
work-box; and gave Charley a bright half-sovereign for bullseyes. As to
Jessy, he paid her no more attention than he did her sisters; hardly as
much: so that if Miss Susan had been entertaining any faint hope that
his object in coming to the Copse was Jessy, and that in consequence
John Drench might escape from bewitching wiles, she found the hope
fallacious. Mr. Marcus Allen had apparently no more thought of Jessy
than he had of Sally, the red-armed serving-girl. "But what in the world
brought the man here at all?" questioned Miss Susan of her sister. "He
wanted a bit of country holiday," answered Miss Page with her common
sense.

One day during the week the Squire met them abroad, and gave an
impromptu invitation to the Manor for the evening. Only the three Miss
Pages came. Mr. Marcus Allen sent his compliments, and begged to be
excused on the score of headache.

One evening at dusk we met him and Jessy. She had been out on some
errand, and he overtook her in the little coppice path between the
church and the farm. Tod, dashing through it to get home for dinner, I
after him, nearly dashed right upon them. Mr. Marcus Allen had his face
inside her bonnet, as if he were speaking in the ear of a deaf old lady
of seventy. Tod burst out laughing when we got on.

"That fellow was stealing a sly kiss in the dark, Johnny."

"Like his impudence."

"Rubbish," retorted Tod. "It's Christmas-tide, and all fair. Didn't you
see the bit of mistletoe he was holding up?" And Tod ran on, whistling a
line of a song that the Squire used to sing in his young days:

    "We all love a pretty girl, under the rose."

Mr. Marcus Allen left the Copse Farm with hearty thanks for its
hospitality. He promised to come again in the summer, when the fields
should be sweet with hay and the golden corn was ripening.

No sooner had he gone than John Drench asked Jessy to promise to be his
wife. Whether he had felt any secret jealousy of Mr. Marcus Allen and
his attractions, and deemed it well to secure Jessy as soon as the coast
was clear, he spoke out. Jessy did not receive the honour kindly. She
tossed her pretty head in a violent rage: the idea, she said, of her
marrying _him_. Jessy had never flirted with John Drench since the
Aberystwith journey, or encouraged him in any way--that was certain.
Unpleasantness ensued at the farm. Mr. Page decidedly approved of the
suitor: he alone had perceived nothing of Susan's hopes: and, perhaps
for the first time in his life, he spoke sharply to Jessy. John Drench
was not to be despised, he told her; his father was a wealthy man, and
John would have a substantial portion; more than double enough to put
him into the largest and best farm in the county: Mr. Drench was only
waiting for a good one to fall in, to take it for him. No: Jessy would
not listen. And as the days went on and John Drench, _as she said_,
strove to further his suit on every opportunity, she conceived, or
professed, a downright aversion to him. Sadly miserable indeed she
seemed, crying often; and saying she would rather go out as lady's-maid
to some well-born lady than stay at home to be persecuted. Miss Susan
was in as high a state of rapture as the iniquity of false John Drench
permitted; and said it served the man right for making an oaf of
himself.

"Let be," cried old Page of Jessy. "She'll come to her senses in time."
But Miss Abigail, regarding Jessy in silence with her critical eyes,
took up the notion that the girl had some secret source of discomfort,
with which John Drench had nothing to do.

It was close upon this, scarcely beyond the middle of January, when one
Monday evening Duffham trudged over from Church Dykely for a game at
chess with the Squire. Hard weather had set in; ice and snow lay on
the ground. Mrs. Todhetley nursed her face by the fire, for she had
toothache as usual; Tod watched the chess; I was reading. In the midst
of a silence, the door opened, and old Thomas ushered in John Drench, a
huge red comforter round his neck, his hat in his hand.

"Good-evening, Squire; good-evening, ma'am," said he in his shy way,
nodding separately to the rest of us, as he unwound the comforter. "I've
come for Miss Jessy, please."

"Come for Miss Jessy!" was the Squire's surprised echo. "Miss Jessy's
not here. Take a seat, Mr. John."

"Not here?" cried Drench, opening his eyes in something like fear, and
disregarding the invitation to sit down. "Not here! Why where can she
have got to? Surely she has not fallen down in the snow and ice, and
disabled herself?"

"Why did you think she was here?"

"I don't know," he replied, after a pause, during which he seemed to be
lost. "Miss Jessy was not at home at tea: later, when I was leaving for
the night, Miss Abigail asked me if I would come over here first and
fetch Jessy. I asked no questions, but came off at once."

"She has not been here," said Mrs. Todhetley. "I have not seen Jessy
Page since yesterday afternoon, when I spoke to her coming out of
church."

John Drench looked mystified. That there must have been some
misapprehension on Miss Page's part; or else on his, and he had come to
the wrong house; or that poor Jessy had come to grief in the snow on her
way to us, seemed certain. He drank a glass of ale, and went away.

They were over again at breakfast time in the morning, John Drench and
Miss Abigail herself, bringing strange news. The latter's face turned
white as she told it. Jessy Page had not been found. John D