Mrs. Chetwynde started, and exclaimed
suddenly:

"I have it!"

"Mama! mama!" remonstrated Olivia—
for there was an expression of painful eagerness
in her mother's look that shocked her;
"what do you mean, mama? You seem half
wild."

Mr. Chetwynde's step was heard descending.

"George! Come here, I have found it out!"
cried his wife, vehemently.

"Found out what, my dear?" said he,
entering.

"Found out what puzzled me so much in
this room last night."

"What is it?"

"It was in this house, in this very room,
that I last saw my mother. It was in this
house and in this room that we lived until Sir
Jasper Carghill took me away."

"My dear, good Charlotte, be reasonable!"
said Mr. Chetwynde, in an expostulatory
tone. "How can you pretend to recollect
anything that happened so long ago ? It is
absurd!"

"I don't recollect it—I SEE it! " she
answered firmly. "It came upon me in a flash,
when I saw Minny sticking a crust into one
of those frightful mouths. I used to do that
myself, and a woman slapped my hands when
I did it. I remember another old person,
without either hair or cap, peeping in at the
door, and crying, 'Hash and chopsticks for
two, doctor!' and then making hideous
grimaces at me."

"Really, my love, this becomes serious,"
said Mr. Chetwynde, looking provokingly
incredulous. It sounds altogether unreal."

"But it is NOT unreal"

"How funny, mama, that my feeding
these ugly faces should make you say such
queer things!" cried Minny.

"Very strange, indeed," added Livy, though
more gravely. She was disposed to see
something in her mother's extraordinary conduct
more than the others could or would.

"Believe me, or believe me not, I do declare
that I have been in this room before, and in
this room I remember my poor mother. We
were very unhappy. Both of us."

"Let us say, love, that it is a remarkable
coincidence, and have done with the matter.
I declare it makes my flesh creep to see you
look and talk so," said Mr. Chetwynde, who
was always in haste to dispose of the personal
part of anything unpleasant.

"It is ridiculous to speak about coincidences,
George; this has nothing to do with
a coincidence!" exclaimed his wife,
impatiently. "I was dwelling on the matter last
night, for I scarcely slept at all; and, this
morning, two common-place childish things
flashed a light over the past such as I never
thought to see—yes, and I will see more. I
will know when and where and how my
mother died. I will compel Sir Jasper to tell
me."

"Now, Charlotte, don't run a tilt in the
dark at your best friend!" interposed Mr.
Chetwynde.

"Best friend!" she retorted, with infinite
scorn. "Worst enemy. I shall never think
but that the repulsion I have always felt for
that man, causeless and ungrateful as I have
heard it called, had its root in some wrong
felt and understood at the time; but
forgotten long ago in all except its effect.
Perhaps that very wrong may be connected
with the scene that is dawning dimly and
slowly upon me now."

"My dear, do please remember that all
this time breakfast waits, and the coffee is
growing cold. Let me offer you my arm."
Mrs. Chetwynde looked annoyed at her
husband's persistent disbelief, and chose to walk
down-stairs alone.

II.

WHEN Sir Jasper Carghill was in town, he
occupied a great house in a dull, aristocratic
square, which had belonged to the family
for generations. He was a bachelor, very
wealthy, and very ostentatious; but, at heart,
he was penurious in the extreme. This
respectable vice had increased upon him with
his years, and he was said to have saved so
much money, that it could be reckoned with
difficulty. He came to London soon after
the Chetwyndes, and professed to be quite
grieved and shocked to find where they had
retreated to. He would get George a
Government situation; he would help him in any
way he liked best, for his wife's sake. Only
before people knew him to be in town, he
must come out of that stuccoed villa. Sir
Jasper seemed to have taken a special
dislike both to the house and its locality; but
Mrs. Chetwynde said it was as good as they
could afford. The neighbourhood was
sufficiently open and healthy for the children, and
she, for her part, was not disposed to move.

"And besides, Sir Jasper," she added, in
her decided, high-spirited way, "I have got
certain ideas into my head about this house,
which I intend to have cleared up. I am
persuaded that I have been in it before, and
that I lived here with my mother—What do
you say to that?"

"I say, my dear, that you had better
consult your physician," was the reply.

"I do not see how that is to help me,"
replied Mrs. Chetwynde, coolly. "Come
upstairs, and I will show you the room that
revived all my dormant recollections."

"Excuse me, Charlotte; I am not so
young as I have been, and I would rather not
go up-stairs: not being subject to frivolous
hallucinations of any sort likely to reward
the exertion."

"This is no hallucination," persisted Mrs.
Chetwynde.

"My love, don't hark back upon this
subject—you see how disagreeable it is to Sir
Jasper," interposed her husband.