Page:Minnie's Bishop and Other Stories (1915).djvu/111

 Mrs. Crossley, with the help of a borrowed comb, regained a measure of self-respect.

Curiously enough, as it seemed to her, the girls all left her when they could be of no further help. They had sheltered her, nursed her, clothed her, even tried to feed her in the night, when she was helpless. Several of them were wet to the skin, because they had given her their shawls. Others had parted with valuable hairpins in her hour of need. But now, when, as she conceived, her friendship would be an honour and her conversation a privilege, they all shrank from her, incurably shy. After passing Greenock the harvesters gathered into a group, and engaged in what seemed to her an animated debate. When it was over an elderly man, of patriarchal and benevolent appearance, approached her.

"May I be so bold as to speak a word to your ladyship?" he said.

Mrs. Crossley graciously signified her willingness to listen.

"It isn't for the likes of me to be advising you; but I'm an old man, and I've seen a deal of life, being across in America when I was a boy. Sure it will be better for your ladyship to go back to him."

Mrs. Crossley gazed at him in amazement.

"Isn't it you that is the Archdeacon's lady? Many's the time I've seen him in the big town, when I was there for a fair or such like. A fine man he