missus says you’re to make yourself useful. They’ve pretty well worked the flesh off my bones since I’ve been here, so you must just help to put a little on.”

I looked at her in amazement, and she certainly was not at all prepossessing, being a tall raw-boned woman of some three or four and twenty, in a hastily-put-on cotton dress, her hair rough and untidy, and displaying a general aspect of having spent as little time as possible upon her toilet.

“Now, then, don’t stand staring like that!” she said. “Come along here, and fill this scuttle.”

She led the way into the kitchen and pointed to a large coalscuttle, which I had to take and fill for her, after which she seemed to hesitate as to whether she should place the broom she held in my hands; but, probably under the impression that it would save her no trouble, she altered her mind, and went and fetched a large pair of dirty Wellington boots, which she threw down upon the floor.

“There, go into that shed and clean them and your own too, and mind you do ’em well,” she cried. “He’s a reg’lar wunner about his boots.”

My experience in boot-cleaning consisted in having seen the groom at home occasionally polish a pair, so I was no adept: but hastily setting to, I worked hard at the task, and succeeded indifferently well with the big Wellingtons before bestowing the same pains upon my own shoes.

I need hardly say that I was not very quick over my task, and so it happened that when I returned to the kitchen the fire was brightly burning, the kettle boiling, and my new friend, or enemy, seated at her breakfast.

“There, you can put ’em down,” she said, with her mouth full of bread and butter. “And now you’d best go and wait in the orfice till he comes. You’re too much of a gent, I s’pose, to have meals with me?”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” I said, rather piteously.

“Don’t you? Well, then, I do. You’re to have your victuals in the orfice, and I s’pose they’ll send some out to you when they’re done, seeing as you’re took here out o’ charity.”

I felt a red spot burn in each cheek at these words, but I said nothing, only went sadly to the office, which looked terribly dim and gloomy in the morning light. The dust lay thick upon bill and parchment, and the drab books with their red patches upon their backs I could see by this light were old, discoloured, and worn.

Judging from the appearance of the place, in spite of the ink marks and well-stained blotting-paper, there was not much work carried on there, though, of course, I could not judge that then. All that struck me was that the place looked most melancholy, and that a gloomy yew-tree that half shaded one window was heavily laden with drops of rain.

Seeing my mug and plate upon the big desk, I remembered the words of the servant, and hastened to take them to the kitchen, where I was received with a scowl, and hastened to retreat back to the office.

I had been standing there about an hour, and had just noticed that the clock pointed to half-past eight, when I heard a light step behind me, and, turning round, there stood the girl I had seen in the garden at home.

Her bright, fresh young face was the first pleasant thing upon which my eyes had rested since I came the night before, and as we stood gazing at each other it seemed to me that I could read sympathy and welcome in her frank smile.

“Good-morning,” she said quietly, and held out her hand, which I was in the act of taking, when a wiry sharp voice cried loudly—

“Hetty! Hetty! where are you?”

“Here, mamma,” cried my visitor.

“Then you’ve no business there,” cried the same voice; and the owner—to wit, the lady I had seen in the garden—came in. “Go back to the parlour directly, miss; and mind this, you are never to come in here at all.”

The girl looked eagerly at me again, nodded, and tripped away, leaving a hopeful feeling behind that I could not explain.

“So you are young Grace,” said the lady, whom I presumed to be Mrs Blakeford, and I gazed wonderingly at her pained wrinkled face and weak-looking, wandering eyes. “Mind this: you are to keep in the office. I won’t have you in my rooms; and Mr Blakeford says you are not to be in the kitchen on account of the neighbours’ remarks. I’m sure I don’t know why we study people who never study us; and I’m pinched enough for money now, without having you thrown on to my housekeeping.”

“Now then, what are you doing there?” cried Mr Blakeford harshly, as he entered in his slippers. “Go and make the tea; what do you want to begin chattering to that boy for about our private affairs?”

Mrs Blakeford muttered something about being always wrong, and turned to go.

“Always wrong? Of course you are, when you will come meddling with what don’t concern you. Now then,” he cried, turning sharply round to me, “what are you staring at? Get a cloth and rub down that desk and table. Can’t you see how dusty they are?”

“Yes, sir,” I said, for it was very evident. “Then why don’t you go and do it, blockhead?”

I started to perform the task in great alarm; but I had no duster, and dared not ask him. Fortunately he was called away just then to his breakfast; but he seemed to me to be there still, gazing at me with his keen dark eyes, while his tightly closed thin lips seemed as if they were about to be drawn aside to bite.

As soon as I was alone I stole into the kitchen to ask for a duster.

“Don’t bother me; can’t you see I’m making toast?” was my greeting.

I could see she was making toast, and my attention was further called to it by the sharp ringing of a bell.

“Ah, ring away,” said the woman, going on with her task. “You may ring the bell down, and then I shan’t come till the toast’s done, do now then!”

“Please, Mary, is the—”

I turned upon hearing the pleasant little voice again, which stopped short as I looked round, and our eyes met once more.

“No, Miss Hetty, my dear, the toast ain’t done,” said the woman more softly; “and you may tell your ma that if she is in a hurry she must wait till her hurry’s over.”

“Don’t be cross, Mary,” said the child; and tripping across the kitchen, she ran up to where the woman was kneeling before the fender, kissed her cheek, and tripped out again.

“They may thank her for it, that they may,” grumbled Mary, as if speaking to the fire, “for if it wasn’t for her I wouldn’t stop a day longer in their nasty, disagreeable old house. There!”

The toast was by this time done, and Mary was scraping away at a burnt spot, when the bell began to ring more violently than before, with the result that, instead of running off with the toast, Mary deliberately placed it upon the fender and went across to one of the dresser drawers, out of which she took a clean duster.

“Ring away!” she grumbled. “There’s a duster for you, boy. And look here; you must be hungry. Stop a minute and I’ll cut you a slice. Ah, ring away! You don’t frighten me.”

To my horror, she coolly spread thickly a slice of bread, cut it, and handed it to me before buttering the toast with which she at last crawled out of the kitchen, while I literally fled to the