already. Mrs. Cartaret desires to see Mary
Hind, in order to judge for herself. She
is not easy to please. Her place is not an
easy one. She will pay M. H.'s travelling
expenses to Beckworth House (and back,
should she not keep her), and give her a
month's wages, at the rate of twenty
pounds a year for a few days' trial. Mrs.
Cartaret allows no followers, nor any light
conduct. She will have no flowers nor
tails. Mary Hind will be under the
housekeeper, whom she must obey and
treat with respect. She must not quarrel
with her fellow-servants, or give herself
airs. Many maids have left on this account.
Mary Hind had better start at
once. Beckworth House is eight miles from
Salisbury, and the train will drop her at
the park gate."

Perhaps Maud had hardly realised what
her position was to be until she read this;
for the colour mounted into her cheeks
when she came to the " followers" and the
"light conduct." . . . Well, never mind.
The main thing was that she was to be
tried; that a door was opened to her
(though only ajar, as it were) by which
she might escape, and no longer eat her
step-mother's husband's bread, but earn it
for herself. This was everything. " Thank
God!" she said, almost aloud. "Farewell
to fine-ladyism, and all the hollowness of
a wretched life, without anything to do,
and in dependence on a man I despise.
Welcome honest servitude and hard work!"
She liked decision and plain-speaking,
qualities which certainly distinguished this
letter, written to what was believed to be
a village girl, who had won golden opinions
from the curate. There was nothing
in it that ought to annoy her; but she
began to see, for the first time clearly,
what it was she was undertaking. She,
who knew herself to be singularly impatient
of control, was about to enter upon a
life the first condition of which was implicit
obedience. Mary's delinquency on
that score crossed her mind, and all that
Mr. Miles had said about it. And just
as she had reached this point in her reflections,
she heard behind her a long swinging
step, and the very voice she was at
that moment thinking of called out:

"I beg your pardon, Miss Pomeroy,
but I think you have just dropped this
letter."

She felt that she changed colour as she
held out her hand for it, and she looked
up into his face, in her quick, keen way, as
if trying to read his thoughts.

"How did you know that it was mine?
... as the . . . address . . ."

"I saw you drop it as I was leaving the
school, but you walked at such a pace, Miss
Pomeroy, I had some difficulty in catching
you up without taking to running."

She hesitated for a moment. He had,
of course, seen the address, and she felt
she must offer some explanation of this, or
his suspicions might be aroused.

"I suppose you guessed whose initials
these are?" she said, pointing to the address;
but her manner, as Miles afterwards
remembered, had not its usual directness:
it was troubled, and she turned her eyes
away from him as she spoke. " I have
written to a lady about Mary Hind. I
hope to get her a place, but . . . for many
reasons ... I desired this lady not to write
to me . . . that is, at the house. Indeed,
the letter is addressed to Mary herself."

"I hope she will get the place, Miss Pomeroy.
Have you sent my testimonial?"

"I have."

"And do you know anything of the lady?
What is her name?"

"I know nothing of her. She is a
stranger," replied Maud, rapidly, gliding
over the other question. " If Mary gets
the place, she will owe it entirely to you,
Mr. Miles. ... I hope she will be happy. . . .
Do you think if people do their duty—in
any state of life—they must be happy, Mr.
Miles?"

He paused before answering her question.
It was the village gossip that she
was to be married to Mr. Durborough, and
he thought, with a pang, that her question
had reference to this. At last, he said,
slowly:

"It depends upon whether the state of
life is one to which we are called, or whether
we choose it for ourselves, having our
eyes open to the knowledge of good and evil.
When Providence places us in a certain
position, without our own free will having
anything to do with it, I believe that the
faithful discharge of duty does ensure a
certain measure of happiness. When we
deliberately leave that state of life for
another——"

He broke off: but, incomplete as the
sentence was, its meaning was clear to
Maud; and, interpreting it as she did, its
immediate application to her own case
startled her so much that she looked into
John Miles's face once more, with anxious
scrutiny. His eyes were bent upon the
ground, his lips trembled, and there was
a slight contraction of the brow which