gained leisure. And she had made such good
use of her time that she could not see her way
to forgetting, as before.

This Janet was, undoubtedly, a spoiled child
of fortune. Luxury had been her nurse, her
playfellow, her instructress. Her baby fingers
had been amused by the whimsical distribution
of many superfluous guineas. Gold had been a
toy to her, and no one had ever thought it
necessary to instruct her as to its value. She
had always had so much that it seemed she had
no need of any at all. She had not alone been
saved from trouble in her own life, but she had
never even come in contact with grief, suffering,
or fear. Every one was thoughtful for her;
every one was worshipful of her. Her hands
were so full of everything that she could not
stretch them forth to take hold of anything.
There was nothing for her to choose, beyond
the colour of a dress; there was nothing that
she could dread, beyond the misfit of a boot.
She had no need to check her tongue, for her
impertinence was all wit: it were wrong to
curb her temper, since her passions were only
proof of a fine mettle. It were silly to seek
for wisdom, since her follies were found charms;
it were idle to mend her ignorance from books,
since there were always people willing to tell
her anything which she might happen to want
to know. Her life was as full of boons as her
jewel case of gems, and if she wanted to be
thwarted she must quarrel with her shoestrings.
The period of her days was like a box choked
up with sugar-plums, all sweet, all smooth, all
alike, all unwholesome.

There was just one little thing which she had
wished to keep, and had lost. It had not been
much to keep, she had thought, and so had
been careless to hold it. It had not been a
great deal to lose, she had said, when she
found it had slipped away. How much she
had missed it when it was gone she was far
too proud ever to dream of acknowledging to
herself.

She had had so many suitors it would have
been a labour to her to count them. Of high
degree, of low degree, of richer and of poorer,
of younger and of older. And, if this thing
which she had lost, which she regretted having
lost, were the heart of a young, foolish, good-natured
lover, what wonder that Miss Golden
should feel dissatisfied with herself? It was as
if some one overburthened with riches should
stoop in search of a farthing. In addition to
the discontentedness which had increased in her
during his absence, Miss Golden was farther
disturbed because Sir Archie had returned; for
above all other people who came near her, Sir
Archie had the knack of setting her world upside
down.

Now, if these scraps of information as to Miss
Golden’s private feelings be considered most
disjointed and unsatisfactory, it can only be said
that in such respects they are the more like the
young lady’s thoughts.

Could it have been the seamstress whom he
was waiting upon like that? Miss Janet was
asking questions of herself or the steel bars of
her glowing grate. They expected her to-night,
and her room had been prepared. She claimed
to be a lady. “I will go this moment and visit
her, and see what she is like. And if it so
happens she be the dressmaker, I’ll give her a
task at once.”

A few moments after this valiant resolution
had been come to, a tap fell on Hester’s door:
then the door was quickly opened, without
pause for further ceremony, and Miss Janet
made a very handsome picture in the doorway.

Her white velvet gown was half hanging from
her waist; a brilliant scarlet shawl was twisted
loosely round her shoulders. Her dark curls
were gathered to the crown of her pretty head,
and held there in a soft wreath by a glittering
jewelled clasp. Her fair, saucy, satin-cheeked
young face was held aloft with a sort of natural
disdain. Her brown eyes were sparkling with
an imperious curiosity.

Hester, thus caught in her first act of secresy,
dropped her hands on the paper in a childish
trepidation. So Janet saw her first, a look of
fear in her up-turned eyes, hiding the letter
she was writing with a guilty-looking impulse.
Miss Golden noted the look and the gesture at
the time, forgot about them afterwards, but
later again remembered, when it might have
been well she had still forgotten them.

“A sly little lackadaisy!” was Miss Janet’s
inward comment. “Beginning to write letters
before she can well know where she is sitting.
And hiding them up in a hurry, as if it were
anybody’s business but her own!”

Miss Janet had no reason for her ill-disposed
feeling towards the young seamstress, except
perhaps a general and undefined feeling that
dressmakers had no business to be ladies. A
humble sewing damsel with such an ambition
should be checked. And if an enthusiastic nun
like the Mother Augustine should encourage
her, and if a philanthropic matron like Mrs.
Hazeldean should be imposed upon, all this
was no reason why a gentleman like Sir Archie
should stoop to wait on her like a lacquey.
But such being actually the case, it was high
time some person of common sense, and a
proper perception of the fitness of things,
should step in and show the young woman her
mistake. So Miss Janet just stepped in, with
her rent dress in her hand.

“You are the new seamstress, I believe,”
she said, with a little supercilious hesitation.
“May I trouble you to mend my dress?”

Hester, so appealed to, was at her post in a
moment, her needle threaded, thimble on finger,
her hand steady, her face composed. It was
only when people were too good to her, or too
thoughtful for her, that she was likely to lose
her presence of mind. This splendid haughty
young lady must be Pierce Humphrey’s Janet
Golden. And Hester, out of sympathy for the
absent lover, set about the task of the mending
with her fingers in their most dainty careful
mood.

She stood close to Janet’s shoulder, with her