into a small house were going on in the passage,
Mrs. Penmore and her guest were left confronting
each other in the dining-room, and Gabrielle
saw, to begin with, and, as a matter of course,
that the newly arrived lady was not in the least
the sort of person she had expected. Miss
Carrington, to begin with, was handsomer, as
far as features went, than Gabrielle had expected,
but her complexion was not by any means a
good one, and she had an uneasy, dissatisfied
expression, which made one feel uncomfortable
in her presence. She seemed to be about
thirty years of age, or perhaps a year or two
more, was thin and haggard-looking, and had
the art of saying disagreeable things in a sharp,
aggravating voice. I believe she could not help
this, for when she tried to be agreeable––which,
it must be owned, was seldom enough––then it
was that the most spiteful things of all would
come out.

"Ah, one could tell that you were of foreign
blood," said Miss Carrington, "only by looking
at you, and without hearing you speak. You are
so very dark."

Gabrielle excused herself under this accusation
as well as she could, by intimating that the
sun, where she was brought up, was rather a
powerful one, and that the inhabitants of the
West Indian Islands were generally gifted with
darker complexions than fell to the lot of
Europeans. At this moment there was a smart
rap at the door, and the form of the
sour-visaged servant appeared. She seemed to be
chewing venom, from the expression of her
mouth.

"Well, Cantanker, what is it?" inquired
Miss Carrington. It is needful to mention that
the name of this agreeable-looking female was
Jane Cantanker. Destiny had, by a strange freak,
fitted, in this case, the name to the woman in a
remarkable manner.

"I merely wished to ask," said Miss
Cantanker, with the gurgling of suppressed fury in
her voice, "where I am expected to set in the
evening?" and she looked inquiringly round
the room, as if she rather expected to see an
open door, with a luxurious apartment beyond,
to be devoted to her special service.

Miss Carrington looked at her hostess. "You
can answer that best, I think," she said.

"Well," replied the poor little woman, with
much hesitation, "I thought––I thought the
kitchen––I was not prepared."

"There, Cantanker, do you hear," said Miss
Carrington. For the woman had remained like
a block of marble, and had taken no notice of
what Mrs. Penmore had said.

"Begging your pardon, miss," she now
remarked, addressing her mistress, "I shall set in
no such place, for, besides that the floor is of
stone and the cheers bare Windsor ones, the
servant-girl is but an ignorant maid-of-all-work,
and not fit company for decent people."

There was an awkward pause after this.

"Well," said Miss Carrington, " what's to be
done?"

Poor Mrs. Penmore hesitated more than ever.
"I am sure I don't know, unless," she added––
"unless you would like to sit in your bedroom."

"Do you hear?" asked Miss Carrington, for
Cantanker had again become marble.

"I hear, miss," said this relentless person,
condescending to answer her mistress, but looking
steadily at Gabrielle, as she had done from
the first. "I have not yet seen it."

"You had better ask Charlotte, as she is
come back, to show it you," said Mrs. Penmore,
timidly.

Miss Cantanker remained fixed and
stationary. And again her mistress had to interpret.

"You had better ask Charlotte to show it to
you."

Very slowly, and with her eyes still fixed
upon Mrs. Penmore, the accommodating Miss
Cantanker backed towards the door, and, after
consuming as much time in the act as was
possible, opened it, and vanished slowly.

"Is not my cousin at home?" inquired Miss
Carrington, as soon as this agreeable person had
disappeared; and the lady looked inquisitively
about the room, as if she expected to see the
unfortunate Gilbert concealed in some corner.

"He was very sorry," Mrs. Penmore replied
––"very sorry indeed, but he was obliged to be
away to-night."

"I think he might have stretched a point
under the circumstances," said the lady, in an
injured tone.

"I do assure you," urged poor Gabrielle,
"that nothing but a matter of business, which
could not be put off, would have taken him out
on such an occasion."

After this there was a pause of some
considerable duration. It was only broken by the
information conveyed by Miss Carrington to
her hostess that "she never took tea;" and as
the meal which had been prepared for her special
benefit was tea, this was rather disconcerting.
There was nothing for it but to get out a bottle
of Marsala and decant it then and there. Miss
Carrington watched the performance of this
process with a cold and somewhat cruel stare,
and then came another long pause, and then
another sharp tap at the door, followed without
ceremony by the entry of Miss Cantanker with
an expression of countenance which it was not
good to behold.

"Well, Cantank––" Miss Carrington was
beginning, when her maid interrupted her.

"I wish to know, miss, whether I have come
here to be insulted, and put in a dog-hole to
sleep?"

This tremendous question, which was put to
Miss Carrington, but at the luckless Gabrielle,
was on so fearful a scale, that poor Mrs.
Penmore was struck entirely speechless by it.

"Explain yourself, Cantanker," her mistress
interposed. "Do you mean that your room is
not what you like?"

"Like!" echoed the maiden. "Like!" and
she spoke with awful slowness and solemnity.
"It is a garret. It has a sloping roof. The
cheers is rush-bottomed. There are no curtains