must excuse me now, Margery. I must go.
Have patience with me, dear," she added,
wistfully. " I will come to your room to-night."

And she went away sadly.

She came to me that night surely. She asked
me to put out the lights, and crouching on a
low seat by the fire, she told me her story.

"Do not ask me to look in your face till I
have done," she said, "but let me hold your
hand, and whenever you are too much disgusted
and sickened with me to hear me any longer
draw away your hand, that I may know."

Poor Rachel! that was what she said in
beginning. I will tell you her history as nearly
as possible in the way that she related it, but I
cannot now recollect, and it were useless to
repeat one half the bitter words of self-
condemnation which she used.

When quite a little girl (she said) I was sent
to a school in Paris. Oh, why did my mother
send me so early from her side? It was a
worldly school—worldly to the last degree. I
learned chiefly to think that in proportion as
my father was honoured and wealthy, my friends
gay and extravagant, just so were my chances
of happiness in life. I had handsome clothes
and rich presents, and I was a great favourite.

There was a lady, a friend of my father's,
who lived in Paris, and who had liberty to take
me for holidays to her house as often as she
pleased. She made a pet of me, and I spent at
least half my time in her carriage or her salon.
She had charming toilettes prepared for me,
which I was enchanted to wear. Thus I was
early introduced to the gay world of Paris, and
learned its lessons of folly and vanity by heart.
I can remember myself dressed like a fantastic
doll, flitting from one room to another, listening
to the conversation of the ladies and
admiring their costumes. Every summer I came
home for a time, but I found home dull after.
Paris, and I was rather in awe of my mother's
grave face and quiet ways. She always parted
with me against her will—I knew that—but it
was my father's wish that I should have a
Parisian education.

I was just seventeen, on the point of leaving
school, bewitched by vanity and arrogance and
the delights of the world, when the dreadful
news came—you know—about my father, his
ruin and disgrace. The effect on me was like
nothing you could enter into or conceive. I
think it deprived me even of reason, such
reason as I had. I had nothing in me—
nothing had ever been put in me—to enable me
to endure such a horrible reverse.

My mother had written to that friend, the
lady l have mentioned, begging her to break
the news to me. She, however, was on the
point of leaving Paris for her country château,
and simply wrote to madame, the mistress of
my school, transferring the unpleasant task to
her. She sent her love to me, and assured me
she was very sorry, desolée, that she could not
delay to pay me a visit. I have never seen her
since.

And so the whole school knew of my fall and
disgrace as soon as I learned it myself. The
first thing I did when I understood the full
extent of my humiliation was to seize my hat
and cloak, and rush out of the house with the
intention of never coming back, never being
seen again by any one who had ever known me.
But after walking Paris for several hours, and
getting two or three rough frights through
being alone and unprotected, I was overcome
with fear and fatigue, and was obliged to return
by evening, hungry, weary, and sullen, to the
school.

I took it for granted that all the world would
now be my enemy, and, determined not to wait
to be shuffled off by my friends, I assumed at
once a hauteur and defiance which estranged
me from every one. My mother, my poor
mother, wrote to me, begging me to be patient
until she should find it convenient to bring me
home. Patient! Oh dear, I did not know the
meaning of the word! No, I would not go
home; I would change my name, and never
willingly see again the face of one who knew
me.

Every day I searched the papers, and soon
saw an advertisement which I thought might
suit me. An English lady in Paris required an
English companion, "young,, cheerful, and well-
educated." Without losing a moment I went
straight to the hotel where the lady lived, saw
her, pleased her; she was good, kind Mrs.
Hill.

I gave her an assumed name, the first that
entered my head, and referred her to madame
at my pension. When I returned home, I
said:

"Madame, I have two hundred francs here
in my desk; they shall be yours if you will not
undeceive a lady who is coming here to assure
herself that I am respectable and well-educated,
and that I am Miss Leonard, an orphan, and of
an honourable family."

Madame coloured and hesitated; she was
surprised at my audacity, but I knew that she
had bills coming due just then, and that she was
extravagant. We, her pupils, had talked over
these things. She hesitated, but in the end
agreed to oblige her dear child who had been
to her so good and so profitable a pupil.
Perhaps she thought I acted with the consent of
my mother, that it was not her affair, and that
Providence had sent her my little offering to
help her to pay her just debts.

Mrs. Hill came the next day; a word satisfied
her, and she only stayed about three minutes.
She was preparing to leave Paris for Rome,
and had many affairs to attend to in the mean
time. She urged me to come to her without
delay, and in a few hours I was established
under her roof.

I was then quite unaware that I had omitted
to mention Mrs. Hill's name or address to
madame, and that madame had forgotten, or
had not been sufficiently interested in the
matter to ask it. As I said before, I think it is
likely that madame believed I acted with the