In the hour that intervened between Donald's arrival and supper he had had a chat with Mr. Hartley, in which the old keeper had taken to the boy immensely; had made friends with Martha, as she showed him to the little room under the eaves and helped him to stow away the contents of his sailor chest, and had won his way straight to Mrs. Hartley's heart, who was but a woman, after all, and gratified by the undisguised admiration in his frank, honest eyes. There remained only one inmate of the cottage yet to be encountered--the gentleman about whom Chris had told him, and who had met with the driving accident a few weeks back; but the gentleman in question bad his own ideas as to the time and place when that dreaded encounter was to be gotten through with, and Donald was not to be favored with an interview that evening.