I had a great deal of quite a different sort of chat with good old Mrs.Rusk, and very pleasant talks with Mary Quince, my somewhat ancient maid; and besides all this, I had now and then a visit of a week or so at the house of some one of our country neighbours, and occasionally a visitor--but this, I must own, very rarely--at Knowl.
There had come now a little pause in my father's revelations, and my fancy wandered away upon a flight of discovery.

Who, I again thought, could this intending visitor be, who was to come, armed with the prerogative to make my stay-at-home father forthwith leave his household goods--his books and his child--to whom he clung, and set forth on an unknown knight-errantry?
Who but Uncle Silas, I thought--that mysterious relative whom I had never seen--who was, it had in old times been very darkly hinted to me, unspeakably unfortunate or unspeakably vicious--whom I had seldom heard my father mention, and then in a hurried way, and with a pained, thoughtful look.

Once only he had said anything from which I could gather my father's opinion of him, and then it was so slight and enigmatical that I might have filled in the character very nearly as I pleased.
It happened thus.

One day Mrs.Rusk was in the oak-room, I being then about fourteen.

She was removing a stain from a tapestry chair, and I watched the process with a childish interest.