room, and sipping mamma every now and then on the wing.

In this buoyancy she remained some twenty-four hours; and then came
clouds and chills, which, in their turn, gave way to exultation, duly
followed by depression. Her spirits were so uncertain, that things too
minute to justify narration turned the scale either way: a word from Mrs.
Dodd--a new face at St. Anne's Church looking devoutly her way--a piece
of town gossip distilled in her ear by Mrs. Maxley--and she was sprightly
or languid, and both more than reason.

One drizzly afternoon they were sitting silent and saddish in the
drawing-room, Mrs. Dodd correcting the mechanical errors in a drawing of
Julia's, and admiring the rare dash and figure, and Julia doggedly
studying Dr. Whately's Logic, with now and then a sigh, when suddenly a
trumpet seemed to articulate in the little hall: "Mestress Doedd at home
?"

The lady rose from her seat, and said with a smile of pleasure, "I hear a
voice."

The door opened, and in darted a grey-headed man, with handsome but
strongly marked features, laughing and shouting like a schoolboy broke
loose. He cried out, "Ah! I've found y' out at last." Mrs. Dodd glided to
meet him, and put out both her hands, the palms downwards, with the
prettiest air of ladylike cordiality; he shook them heartily. "The
vagabins said y' had left the town; but y' had only flitted from the quay
to the subbubs; 'twas a pashint put me on the scint of ye. And how are y'
all these years? an' how's Sawmill?"

"Sawmill! What is that?"