"Are you going to light the candles,
after all?"

Louisa drew back into the dimmest corner of
the room.

"You suspect me, ma'am!" she answered out
of the darkness in a breathless whisper. "Who
has told you? How did you find out——?"
She stopped, and burst into tears. "I deserve
your suspicion," she said, struggling to compose
herself. "I can't deny it to you. You have
treated me so kindly; you have made me so fond
of you! Forgive me, Mrs. Vanstone—I am a
wretch; I have deceived you."

"Come here, and sit down by me again," said
Magdalen. "Come—or I will get up myself, and
bring you back."

Louisa slowly returned to her place. Dim as the
firelight was, she seemed to fear it. She held her
handkerchief over her face, and shrank from her
mistress as she seated herself again in the chair.

"You are wrong in thinking that any one has
betrayed you to me," said Magdalen. "All that
I know of you is, what your own looks and ways
have told me. You have had some secret trouble
weighing on your mind, ever since you have been
in my service. I confess I have spoken with the
wish to find out more of you and your past life
than I have found out yet—not because I am
curious, but because I have my secret troubles
too. Are you an unhappy woman, like me? If
you are, I will take you into my confidence. If
you have nothing to tell me—if you choose to keep
your secret—I don't blame you; I only say, Let
us part. I won't ask how you have deceived me.
I will only remember that you have been an
honest and faithful and competent servant, while
I have employed you—and I will say as much in
your favour to any new mistress you like to send
to me."

She waited for the reply. For a moment, and
only for a moment, Louisa hesitated. The girl's
nature was weak, but not depraved. She was
honestly attached to her mistress; and she spoke
with a courage which Magdalen had not expected
from her.

"If you send me away, ma'am," she said, "I
won't take my character from you till I have
told you the truth; I won't return your kindness
by deceiving you a second time. Did my master
ever tell you how he engaged me?"

"No. I never asked him, and he never told
me."

"He engaged me, ma'am, with a written
character——"

"Yes?"

"The character was a false one."

Magdalen drew back in amazement. The
confession she heard, was not the confession she had
anticipated.

"Did your mistress refuse to give you a
character?" she asked. "Why?"

Louisa dropped on her knees, and hid her face
in her mistress's lap. "Don't ask me!" she
said. "I'm a miserable, degraded creature; I'm
not fit to be in the same room with you!"

Magdalen bent over her, and whispered a
question in her ear. Louisa whispered back the
one sad word of reply.

"Has he deserted you?" asked Magdalen,
after waiting a moment, and thinking first

"No."

"Do you love him?"

"Dearly."

The remembrance of her own loveless marriage
stung Magdalen to the quick.

"For God's sake, don't kneel to me!" she cried,
passionately. "If there is a degraded woman
in this room, I am the woman—not you!"

She raised the girl by main force from her
knees, and put her back in the chair. They both
waited a little, in silence. Keeping her hand on
Louisa's shoulder, Magdalen seated herself
again, and looked with an unutterable bitterness
of sorrow into the dying fire. "Oh," she
thought, " what happy women there are in the
world! Wives who love their husbands!
Mothers who are not ashamed to own their children!
Are you quieter?" she asked, gently addressing
Louisa once more. "Can you answer me, if I
ask you something else? Where is the child?"

"The child is out at nurse."

"Does the father help to support it?"

"He does all he can, ma'am."

"What is he? Is he in service? Is he in a
trade?"

"His father is a master-carpenter—he works
in his father's yard."

"If he has got work, why has he not married
you?"

"It's his father's fault, ma'am—not his. His
father has no pity on us. He would be turned
out of house and home, if he married me."

''Can he get no work elsewhere?"

"It's hard to get good work in London,
ma'am. There are so many in London—they take
the bread out of each other's mouths. If we had
only had the money to emigrate, he would have
married me long since."

"Would he marry you, if you had the money
now?"

"I am sure he would, ma'am. He could get
plenty of work in Australia, and double and treble
the wages he gets here. He is trying hard, and
I am trying hard, to save a little towards it—I
put by all I can spare from my child. But it is
so little! If we live for years to come, there
seems no hope for us. I know I have done wrong
every way—I know I don't deserve to be happy.
But how could I let my child suffer?—I was
obliged to go to service. My mistress was hard
on me, and my health broke down in trying to
live by my needle. I would never have deceived
anybody by a false character, if there had been
another chance for me. I was alone and helpless,
ma'am; and I can only ask you to forgive
me."

"Ask better women than I am," said
Magdalen, sadly. "I am only fit to feel for you;
and I do feel for you with all my heart. In
your place I should have gone into service with