herself.

Thyrza came in slowly. She held a bunch of dripping Michaelmas daisies.

"Shall I get a glass for them? I thowt mebbe you'd like 'em in here."

Netta thanked her ungraciously. She remembered having seen the girl the night before, and Anastasia had mentioned her as the daughter of the Contadino.

Thyrza put the flowers in water, Netta watching her in silence; then going into the hall, she returned with a pair of white lace curtains.

"Shall I put 'em up? It 'ud mebbe be more cheerful."

Netta looked at them languidly.

"Where do they come from?"

"Mr. Tyson brought 'em from Pengarth. He thowt you might like 'em for the drawing-room."

Mrs. Melrose nodded, and Thyrza mounted a chair, and proceeded to put up the curtains, turning an observant eye now and then on the thin-faced lady sitting on the sofa, her long fingers clasped round her knees, and her eyes—so large and staring as to be rather ugly than beautiful in Thyrza's opinion—wandering absently round the room.

"It's a clashy day," Thyrza ventured at last.

"It's a dreadful day," said Mrs. Melrose sharply. "Does it always rain like this?"

"Well, it do rain," was Thyrza's cautious reply. "But there that's better than snowin'—for t' shepherds."

Mrs. Melrose found the girl's voice pleasant, and could not deny that she was pretty, in her rustic way.

"Has your father many sheep?"

"Aye, but they're all gone up to t' fells for t' winter. We had a grand time here in September—at t' dippin'. Yo'd never ha' thowt there was so mony folk about"—the girl went on, civilly, making talk.

"I never saw a single house, or a single light, on the drive from the station last night," said Mrs. Melrose, in her fretful voice. "Where are all the people?"

"Well, there ain't many!" laughed Thyrza. "It's a lonesome place this is. But when it's a shearin', or a dippin', yo' unnerstand, farmin' folk'll coom a long way to help yan anuther."

"Are they all farmers about here?"

"Mostly. Well, there's Duddon Castle!" Thyrza's voice, a little muffled by the tin-tacks in the mouth, came from somewhere near the top of a tall window—"Oh—an' I forgot!—"

In a great hurry the speaker jumped down from her perch, and to Netta's astonishment ran out of the room.

"What is she about?" thought Mrs. Melrose irritably. But the question was hardly framed before Thyrza reappeared, holding out her hand, in which lay some visiting-cards.

"I should ha' given them yo' before."

Mrs. Melrose took them with surprise, and read the name.

"Countess Tatham—who is she?"

"Why it's she that lives at Duddon Castle." Then the girl looked uncertainly at her companion—"Mr. Tyson did tell me she was a relation of Mr. Melrose."

"A relation? I don't know anything about her," said Netta decidedly. "Did she come to call upon me?"

The girl nodded—"She come over—it was last Tuesday—from Duddon, wi' two lovely horses—my, they were beauties! She said she'd come again."

Netta asked questions. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was the great lady of the neighbourhood, and Duddon Castle was a splendid old place, that all the visitors went to see. And there were her cards. Netta's thoughts began to hurry thither and thither, and possibilities began to rise. A relation of Edmund's? She made Thyrza tell her all she knew about Duddon and the Tathams. Visions of being received there, of meeting rich and aristocratic people, of taking her place at last in society, the place that belonged to her as Edmund's wife, in spite of his queer miserly ways, ran again lightly through a mind that often harboured such dreams before—in vain. Her brow cleared. She made Thyrza leave the curtains, and sit down to gossip with her. And Thyrza, though perfectly conscious, as the daughter of a hard-working race, that to sit gossiping at midday was a sinful thing, was none the less willing to sin; and she chattered on in a Westmoreland dialect that grew steadily broader as she felt herself more at ease, till Mrs. Melrose could scarcely follow her.

But she managed to seize on the facts that concerned her. Lady Tatham, it seemed, was a widow, with an only boy, a lad of seven, who was the heir to Duddon Castle, and its great estates. The Castle was ten miles from the Tower.

"How shall I ever get there?" thought Mrs. Melrose, despairingly.

As to other neighbours, they seemed to consist entirely of an old bachelor doctor, about three miles away, and the clergyman of Gimmers Wick and his wife. She was sure to come. But most people were "glad to see the back on her." She had such a poor spirit, and was always complaining.

In the midst of this conversation, the door of the room, which was ajar, slowly opened. Thyrza looked round and saw in the aperture a tiny white figure. It was the Melrose baby, standing silent, wide-eyed, with its fingers in its mouth, and Anastasia behind it. Anastasia, whose look was still thunderous, explained that she was unpacking and could not do with it. The child toddled in to its mother, and Thyrza exclaimed in admiration:

"Oh, you are a little beauty!"

And she caught up one of the brass curtain rings lying on the table, and tried to attract the baby with it. But the little thing took not the smallest notice of the lure. She went straight to her mother, and, leaning against Netta's knee, she turned to stare at Thyrza with an intensity of expression, rare in a child so young. Thyrza, kneeling on the floor, stared back—fascinated. She thought she had never seen anything so lovely. The child had her father's features, etherealized; and great eyes, like her mother, but far more subtly beautiful. Her skin was pale, but of such a texture that Thyrza's roses-and-milk looked rough and common beside it. Every inch of the proud little head was covered with close short curls leaving the white neck free, and the hand lifted to her mouth was of a waxen delicacy.

Netta opened a picture-book that Anastasia had brought down with her. Felicia pushed it away. Netta opened it again. Then the child, snatching it from her, sat down on the floor, and, before Netta could prevent her, tore one of the pages across with a quick, vindictive movement—her eyes sparkling.

"Naughty—! naughty!" said Netta in a scolding voice.

But Thyrza dropped her hand hastily into a gray calico pocket tied round her waist, and again held out something.

"It is only a pear-drop," she said apologetically to Netta. "It won't hurt her."

Felicia snatched at it at once, and sucked it, still flushed with passion. Her mother smiled faintly.

"You like sweets?" she said, childishly, to her companion; "give me one?"

Thyrza eagerly brought out a paper bag from her pocket and Netta put out a pair of thin fingers. She and her sisters had been great consumers of sweet stuff in the small dark Florentine shops. The shared greediness promoted friendship; and by the time Mrs. Dixon put in a reproachful face with a loud—"Thyrza, what be you a doin'?"—Mrs. Melrose knew as much of the Tower, the estate, the farm, and the persons connected with them, as Thyrza's chattering tongue could tell her in the time.

There was nothing, however, very consoling in the information. When
Thyrza departed, Mrs. Melrose was left to fret and sigh much as before.
The place was odious; she could never endure it. But yet