"Why?" asked Jackie.

"Oh, because he's quite a common man, and tucks up his shirt sleeves, and keeps a shop."

"Well, that's just the nice part of it," said Jackie eagerly--"so interesting, always to be among the animals and things. And then his shop's in the very best part of Dorminster, where he can see everything pa.s.s, and all his friends drop in and tell him the news. I don't expect he's ever dull."

"I daresay not," said Mary, with a shrug of contempt; "but I shouldn't like to be a common vulgar man like that."

Jackie got quite hot.

"I don't believe Greenop's vulgar at all," he said. "Look how he stuffed those pheasants for father. I heard father say, 'Greenop's an uncommonly clever fellow!' Father likes to talk to him, so he can't be vulgar."

Mary did not want another quarrel; she tried to soften her speech down.

"But you see I couldn't be _Mr_. Greenop," she said, "I could only be _Mrs_. Greenop, and sit in that dull little hole at the back of the shop and darn all day."

"Oh, well," Jackie acknowledged, "that might not be so pleasant; but,"

he added, "you might be his daughter, and help to feed the birds, and serve in the shop."

Mary tossed her head.

"What's the good of talking like that?" she said; "I'm _not_ his daughter, and I'm sure I don't want to be."

"But you're always fond of pretending things," persisted Jackie.

"Supposing you _could_ change, whose daughter would you like to be?"

"Well," said Mary, after a little reflection, "if I could change I should like to be a countess, or a princess, or a Lady somebody. Lady Mary Vallance sounds rather nice, I think."

Just then the squire came out of the shop, and they soon started rapidly homewards.

"Mary," said Jackie, squeezing himself close up to her, when they were well on the way, and lowering his voice mysteriously, "I've got a secret to tell you."

Jackie's secrets were never very important, and Mary was not prepared to be interested in this one.

"Have you?" she said absently; "look at all those crows in that field."

"Oh, if you don't want to hear it--" said Jackie, drawing back with a hurt expression; "it's something to do with you, too."

"Well, what is it?" said Mary; "I'm listening."

"I haven't told Agatha, or Jennie, or Patrick," continued he in an injured voice.

"Why, it wouldn't be a secret if you had," said Mary. "Go on; I really want to hear it."

"It was yesterday," began Jackie, lowering his voice again; "I was sitting in the school-room window-seat reading, and Rice came in with a message for Fraulein. And then she stayed talking about lots of things, and then they began to talk about you." Jackie paused.

"That's not much of a secret," said Mary. "Is that all?"

"Of course not. It's only the beginning. They said a lot which I didn't hear, and then Rice told Fraulein a long story in a very low voice, and Fraulein held up her hands and called out 'Himmel!' But the part I really did hear was the last bit."

"Well," said Mary, "what was it? I don't think anything of what you've told me yet."

"'These awful words fell upon my ears,'" said Jackie gloomily, quoting from a favourite ghost story: "'As brown as a berry, and her name's no more Mary Vallance than mine is!'"

"But I'm not as brown as a berry," said Mary. "You must have heard wrong. They couldn't have been talking about me at all."

"I know they were," said Jackie with decision, "for when Fraulein saw me she nodded at Rice and put her finger on her lip, and Rice said something about 'buried in his book.' You see," added Jackie, "I didn't really _listen_, but I heard--because I couldn't help it."

Wensdale was now in sight, and five minutes afterwards the dog-cart stopped at the vicarage gate.

"Don't tell anyone else," whispered Mary hurriedly as she clambered down. "I'm going to ask mother about it."

She ran into the house feeling rather excited, but almost sure that Jackie was mistaken. He often made muddles. What was her astonishment, therefore, after pouring out the story breathlessly, when Mrs Vallance, instead of laughing at the idea, only looked very grave and kept silence.

"Of course I am Mary Vallance, ain't I, mother?" she repeated.

"You are our dear little adopted daughter," said Mrs Vallance; "but that is not really your name."

"What is it then?" asked Mary.

"I do not know. Some day I will tell you how you first came here, but not until you are older."

How mysterious it all was! Mary gazed thoughtfully out into the quiet road, at the ducks splashing about in the river; but she was not thinking of them, her head seemed to whirl. Presently she said:

"Do you know my real mother and father?"

"No," answered Mrs Vallance.

"Perhaps," continued Mary, after a pause, "they live in a big house like the Chelwoods, and have a garden and a park like theirs."

"Perhaps they have," said Mrs Vallance, "and perhaps they live in a little cottage like the blacksmith and his wife, and have no garden at all."

"Oh, I shouldn't like that at all," said Mary quickly; then she suddenly threw her arms round Mrs Vallance's neck and kissed her.

"Whoever they are," she said, "I love you and father best, and always shall."

She asked a great many more questions, but Mrs Vallance seemed determined to answer nothing but "yes" and "no." It was very disappointing to know so much and yet so little, and it seemed impossible to wait patiently till she was older to hear more. At last Mrs Vallance forbade the subject:

"I don't want you to talk of this any more now, Mary," she said. "When the proper time comes, you shall hear all I have to tell; what I want you to remember is this: _Whoever_ you are, and whatever sort of people you belong to, you cannot alter it; but you may have a great deal to do with _what_ you are. We can all make our characters n.o.ble by goodness, however poor our stations are; but if we are proud and vain, and despise others, nothing can save us from becoming vulgar and low, even if we belong to very high rank indeed. That is all you have to think of."

Excellent advice; but though Mary heard all the words, they did not sink into her mind any more than the water on the ducks' backs in the river outside; they rolled off it at once, and only the wonderful, wonderful fact remained, that she was not Mary Vallance. Who was she, then? And, above all, what could Rice have meant by "brown as a berry?" Who was brown as a berry? Certainly not Mary herself; she was quite used to hearing that she was "as white as snow" and "as fair as a lily"--it was Agatha Chelwood who had a brown skin. Altogether it was very mysterious and deeply interesting; soon she began to make up long stories about herself, in which it was always discovered at last that she belonged to very rich people with grand t.i.tles. This was what people had meant when they whispered that she was "no common child." Mary's foolish head was in a whirl of excitement, and filled from morning to night with visions of grandeur. If the little clog could only have spoken! Mute, yet full of expression it stood there, while Mary dreamed in her little white bed of palaces and princesses.

"I was not made," it would have said, "for foot of princess or lady, or to tread on soft carpets and take dainty steps; I am a hardworking shoe made by rough hands, though the heart they belonged to was kind and gentle; I have nothing to do with luxury and idleness."

But no one understood this silent language. The clog was admired, and wondered at, and called "a quaint little shoe," and its history remained unknown.

Mary longed now to tell Jackie her mighty secret, which began to weigh too heavily to keep to herself; but when he did come to the vicarage again, he was not nearly so much impressed by it as she had hoped. This was partly, perhaps, because his mind was full of a certain project which he wished her to join, and she had scarcely bound him by a solemn promise not to breathe a word to the other children of what she had told him, than he began eagerly:

"We're going to spend the day at Maskells to-morrow--the _whole_ day.

Will Mrs Vallance let you go too?"