her lips parted with a breathless welcome; her
eyes shining out love and pride. Duke was but
mortal. All London chanted his rising fame;
and here in his home Theresa seemed to be the
only person who appreciated him.

The servants clustered in the great hall; for it
was now some length of time since lie had been
at home. Victorine was there, with some head-
gear for her lady; and when, in reply to his
inquiry for his wife, the grave butler asserted that
she was with young master, who was, they feared,
very seriously ill, Victorine said, with the
familiarity of an old servant, and as if to assuage
Duke's anxiety: " Madam fancies the child is ill,
because she can think of nothing but him, and
perpetual watching has made her nervous." The
child, however, was really ill; and after a brief
greeting to her husband, Bessy returned to her
nursery, leaving Theresa to question, to hear, to
sympathise. That night she gave way to
another burst of disparaging remarks on poor
motherly homely Bessy, and that night Victorine
thought she read a deeper secret in Theresa's
heart.

The child was scarcely ever out of its mother's
arms; but the illness became worse, and it was
nigh unto death. Some cream had been set aside
for the little wailing creature, and Victorine had
unwittingly used it for the making of a cosmetic
for her mistress. When the servant in charge
of it reproved her, a quarrel began as to their
respective mistress's right to give orders in the
household. Before the dispute ended, pretty
strong things had been said on both sides.

The child died. The heir was lifeless; the
servants were in whispering dismay, and bustling
discussion of their mourning; Duke felt the
vanity of fame, as compared to a baby's life.
Theresa was full of sympathy, but dared not
express it to him; so tender was her heart
becoming. Victorine regretted the death in her
own way. Bessy lay speechless, and tearless;
not caring for loving voices, nor for gentle
touches; taking neither food nor drink; neither
sleeping nor weeping. " Send for her mother,"
the doctor said; for Madam Hawtrey was away
on her visits, and the letters telling her of her
grandchild's illness had not reached her in the
slow-delaying cross-country posts of those days.
So she vas sent for; by a man riding express,
as a quicker and surer means than the post.

Meanwhile, the nurses, exhausted by their
watching, found the care of little Mary by day,
quite enough. Madam's maid sat up with Bessy
for a night or two; Duke striding in from time
to time through the dark hours to look at the
white motionless face, which would have seemed
like the face of one dead, but for the long-
quivering sighs that came up from the
overladen heart. The doctor tried his drugs, in
vain, and then he tried again. This night,
Victorine at her own earliest request, sat
up instead of the maid. As usual, towards
midnight, Duke came stealing in with shaded
light. " Hush!" said Victorine, her finger
on her lips. " She sleeps at last." Morning
dawned faint and pale, and still she slept. The
doctor came, and stole in on tip-toe, rejoicing in
the effect of his drugs. They all stood round
the bed; Duke, Theresa, Victorine. Suddenly
the doctor—a strange change upon him, a
strange fear in his face—felt the patient's pulse,
put his car to her open lips, called for a glass
—a feather. The mirror was not dimmed, the
delicate fibres stirred not. Bessy was dead.

I pass rapidly over many months. Theresa
was again overwhelmed with grief, or rather, I
should say, remorse; for now that Bessy was
gone, and buried out of sight, all her innocent
virtues, all her feminine homeliness, came vividly
into Theresa's mind—not as wearisome, but as
admirable, qualities of which she had been too
blind to perceive the value. Bessy had been
her own old companion too, in the happy days
of childhood, and of innocence. Theresa rather
shunned than sought Duke's company now.
She remained at the castle, it is true, and Madam
Hawtrey, as Theresa's only condition of
continuing where she was, came to live under the
same roof. Duke felt his wife's death deeply,
but reasonably, as became his character. He
was perplexed by Theresa's bursts of grief,
knowing, as he dimly did, that she and Bessy
had not lived together in perfect harmony. But
he was much in London now; a rising statesman;
and when, in autumn, he spent some time
at the castle, he was full of admiration for the
strangely patient way in which Theresa behaved
towards the old lady. It seemed to Duke that
in his absence Madam Hawtrey had assumed
absolute power in his household, and that the high-
spirited Theresa submitted to her fantasies with
even more docility than her own daughter would
have done. Towards Mary, Theresa was always
kind and indulgent.

Another autumn came; and before it went,
old ties were renewed, and Theresa was pledged
to become her cousin's wife.

There were two people strongly affected by
this news when it was promulgated; one—and
this was natural under the circumstances—was
Madam Hawtrey; who chose to resent the
marriage as a deep personal offence to herself
as well as to her daughter's memory, and who
sternly rejecting all Theresa's entreaties, and
Duke's invitation to continue her residence at
the castle, went off into lodgings in the village.
The other person strongly affected by the news,
was Victorine.

From being a dry active energetic middle-
aged woman, she now, at the time of Theresa's
engagement, sank into the passive languor of
advanced life. It seemed as if she felt no more
need of effort, or strain, or exertion. She sought
solitude; liked nothing better than to sit in
her room adjoining Theresa's dressing-room,
sometimes sunk in a reverie, sometimes
employed on an intricate piece of knitting with
almost spasmodic activity. But wherever
Theresa went, thither would Victorine go. Theresa
had imagined that her old nurse would prefer
being left at the castle, in the soothing
tranquillity of the country, to accompanying her and
her husband to the house in Grosvenor-square,