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"Thunder and lightning, can't I swear in my own house? Here's Goffin, too; he's a good judge of language. You go and see Jasper. He's in bed."

"I will."

She left Parson Goffin and her uncle staring at each other. Then Squire Kit spluttered:

"If that girl hadn't got a thousand a year of her own, hang, draw, and quarter me if I'd——"

"Ssh, sir; ssh! She is your brother's daughter."

"Bah, she's not! She's his cat-faced wife's cat-clawed daughter! They killed poor Nat between 'em with their little goody books and their snuffle."

Rose Benham had climbed the broad stairs, noticing a number of trivial things, such as dust on the bannister rail, and cobwebs in some of the corners. Jasper was lying asleep in the oak four-poster when his cousin knocked at the door.

He woke out of the thick of a dream, to hear Rose's metallic voice calling:

"Jasper, can I come in?"

They had been children together, but no such thing as false modesty would have kept Rose Benham out of her cousin's room. She entered breezily, without a fleck of colour on her cheeks, her blue eyes full of a frank, intimate interest. Three years older than Jasper, she still treated him as a boy.