"Oh, is it that whip, John?" said the wife, who had been attracted from
the back parlour by the sight of the handsome young stranger. "Don't you
remember, it's a many year ago, a gentleman who passed a day with Squire
Courtland, when he first come to settle here, called and left the whip to
have a new thong put to it. But I fancies he forgot it, Sir, (turning to
Walter,) for he never called for it again; and the Squire's people said
as how he was a gone into Yorkshire; so there the whip's been ever sin. I
remembers it, Sir, 'cause I kept it in the little parlour nearly a year,
to be in the way like."

"Ah! I thinks I do remember it now," said Master Holwell. "I should think
it's a matter of twelve yearn ago. I suppose I may sell it without fear
of the gentleman's claiming it again."

"Not more than twelve years!" said Walter, anxiously, for it was some
seventeen years since his father had been last heard of by his family.

"Why it may be thirteen, Sir, or so, more or less, I can't say exactly."

"More likely fourteen!" said the Dame, "it can't be much more, Sir, we
have only been a married fifteen year come next Christmas! But my old man
here, is ten years older nor I."

"And the gentleman, you say, was at Mr. Courtland's."

"Yes, Sir, that I'm sure of," replied the intelligent Mrs. Holwell; "they
said he had come lately from Ingee."

Walter now despairing of hearing more, purchased the whip; and blessing