Page:Delight - de la Roche - 1926.djvu/192

 me, and all. Perhaps you'd know of some village where I could get work in a factory."

"We'll talk of that later," replied Kirke. "What I want to know first is how you came to get into Heaslip's hands. By the way, is that the basket I carried up the stairs for you the nicht you first arrived?"

"Yes. I've never been parted from it since my Granny died. It's all I have in the world that belonged to her."

Kirke looked down at her inquisitively.

"It's always—'Granny—Granny' with you. Had ye no mother, then? I've often wondered about you, and I think, considering everything, it's only fitting you should tell me the truth about yourself. You've got some blood in you that's not a common sort, I'll be bound. . . . Is your mother dead?"

"Yes. She died when I was born. I only knew Gran. She kept the lodge on a gentleman's estate, and after she died I went up to London with another maid and got work in a public-house."

"I see. Now what about your mother? Where did she get you? You needn't be afraid to tell me. I can keep a secret if ever a man can. . . . Was it the gentleman whose lodge your grandmother kept? Or did she go up to London, too?"

The horse's hoofs made a pleasant clatter, the wheels a humming sound. A shaggy hill, with the first frost-touched maple crowning it, stood out against the rainy sky.

Kirke peered into her face.

"She was a beauty, eh?"

"Yes, Mr. Kirke, and she did go to London, sorely against my Granny's will."

"To work in a pub?"

"Oh, no." She was indignant. "She was stage-struck. And she learned how to dance with a lot of other girls.