tried to soothe and propitiate her by asking
questions about the management of the baby.
There was a slight trembling in the sweet
voice of the new nurse, but not the faintest
tone of sullenness or anger, as she simply
and quietly answered the inquiries addressed
to her. By dint of keeping the conversation
still on the subject of the child, Mrs. Frankland
succeeded, little by little, in luring her
back to the bedside—in tempting her to bend
down admiringly over the infant—in emboldening
her, at last, to kiss him tenderly on the
cheek. One kiss was all that she gave; and
she turned away from the bed, after it, and
sighed heavily.

The sound of that sigh fell very sadly on
Rosamond's heart. Up to this time, the
baby's little span of life had always been
associated with smiling faces and pleasant
words. It made her uneasy to think that
any one could caress him and sigh after it.

"I am sure you must be fond of children,"
she said, hesitating a little from natural
delicacy of feeling. "But, will you excuse me
for noticing that it seems rather a mournful
fondness? Pray— pray don't answer my
question if it gives you any pain —if you
have any loss to deplore; but —but I do so
want to ask if you have ever had a child of
your own?"

Mrs. Jazeph was standing near a chair
when that question was put. She caught
fast hold of the back of it, grasping it so
firmly, or perhaps leaning on it so heavily,
that the woodwork cracked. Her head
drooped low on her bosom. She did not
utter, or even attempt to utter, a single
word.

Fearing that she must have lost a child
of her own, and dreading to distress her
unnecessarily by venturing to ask any more
questions, Rosamond said nothing, as she
stooped over the baby to kiss him in her
turn. Her lips rested on his cheek a little
above where Mrs. Jazeph's lips had rested
the moment before, and they touched a spot
of wet on his smooth warm skin. Fearing
that some of the water in which she had
been bathing her face might have dropped on
him, she passed her fingers lightly over his
head, neck, and bosom, and felt no other
spots of wet anywhere. The one drop that
had fallen on him was the drop that wetted
the cheek which the new nurse had kissed.

The twilight faded over the landscape, the
room grew darker and darker; and still,
though she was now sitting close to the
table on which the candles and matches were
placed, Mrs. Jazeph made no attempt to
strike a light. Rosamond did not feel quite
comfortable at the idea of lying awake in the
darkness, with nobody in the room but a
person who was as yet almost a total
stranger; and she resolved to have the
candles lighted immediately.

"Mrs. Jazeph," she said, looking towards
the gathering obscurity outside the window,
"I shall be much obliged to you, if you will
light the candles, and pull down the blind. I
can trace no more resemblances out there,
now, to a Cornish prospect; the view has
gone altogether."

"Are you very fond of Cornwall, ma'am?"
asked Mrs. Jazeph, rising, in rather a dilatory
manner, to light the candles.

"Indeed I am," said Rosamond. "I was
born there; and my husband and I were on
our way to Cornwall, when we were obliged
to stop, on my account, at this place. You
are a long time getting the candles lit. Can't
you find the match-box?"

Mrs. Jazeph, with an awkwardness which
was rather surprising in a person who had
shown so much neat-handedness in setting
the room to rights, broke the first match in
attempting to light it, and let the second out
the instant after the flame was kindled. At
the third attempt she was more successful;
but she only lit one candle, and that one she
carried away from the table which Mrs.
Frankland could see, to the dressing-table,
which was hidden from her by the curtains
at the foot of the bed.

"Why do you move the candle?" asked
Rosamond.

"I thought it was best for your eyes,
ma'am, not to have the light too near them,"
replied Mrs. Jazeph; and then added hastily,
as if she was unwilling to give Mrs. Frankland
time to make any objections. "And so
you were going to Cornwall, ma'am, when
you stopped at this place? To travel about
there a little, I suppose?" After saying
these words, she took up the second candle,
and passed out of sight as she carried it to the
dressing-table.

Rosamond thought that the nurse, in
spite of her gentle looks and manners, was a
remarkably obstinate woman. But she was
too good-natured to care about asserting her
right to have the candles placed where she
pleased; and, when she answered Mrs.
Jazeph's question, she still spoke to her as
cheerfully and familiarly as ever.

"O, dear no! Not to travel about," she
said: "but to go straight to the old country
house where I was born. It belongs to my
husband, now, Mrs. Jazeph. I have not
been near it since I was a little girl of five
years of age. Such a ruinous, rambling old
place! You, who talk of the dreariness and
wildness of Cornwall, would be quite
horrified at the very idea of living in Porthgenna
Tower."

The faintly rustling sound of Mrs. Jazeph's
silk dress, as she moved about the dressing-
table, had been audible all the while Rosamond
was speaking. It ceased instantaneously
when she said the words "Porthgenna
Tower;" and, for one moment, there was a
dead silence in the room.

"You, who have been living all your life,
I suppose, in nicely-repaired houses, cannot
imagine what a place it is that we are going