happened," said Mrs. West. She sunk down quietly, as she spoke, into the chair that her mistress indicated by a nod of her grim, unlovely head. "I have had a letter with bad news in. I shall be obliged to quit your service."

"Quit my service!" echoed Lady Lancaster, wildly. Her voice rose almost to a shriek, it was so full of dismay and anger.

"That was what I said, my lady," reiterated the housekeeper, deprecatingly.

Lady Lancaster regarded her in incredulous dismay a moment, then she burst out, sharply:

"But I say you shall do no such thing; I can not spare you, I can not get on without you at all—that is, not without six months' warning to supply your place."

"A month is the usual time, Lady Lancaster," said the housekeeper, mildly; and then, as the old lady regarded her in speechless dismay, she added, quickly: "But I am sorry that I can not even give you a month's warning to supply my place, for I am obliged to leave you right away. I have a long journey to take. I must cross the ocean."

"Cross the ocean! Now, did I ever! Are you crazy, West?" demanded the old lady, wrathfully.

"I knew you would think so," said Mrs. West. "But if you will be kind enough to let me explain the circumstances, you mightn't think so hardly of me, Lady Lancaster."

"No circumstances could excuse your going off in this way," flashed Lady Lancaster. "There is Lord Lancaster coming home by the first of June, and of course I must invite a party to meet him; and there are the rooms, and—and—everything to be seen to. No one knows my ways and my wishes like you who have been at Lancaster Park so many years. Now, what am I to do?"

She lifted her wrinkled hands helplessly.

"There will have to be a new housekeeper found, of course," hazarded Mrs. West, timidly.

"Oh, yes; an ignorant creature who knows nothing, and who will have everything wrong, of course, just when I want all to be at its best," groaned the wizened old aristocrat. "I call this downright ungrateful in you, West, this going off just as we had got used to each other's ways."

Mrs. West suppressed a struggling smile around the corners of her lips, and, rising up, stood respectfully before her hard mistress.

"My lady, I'm sorry you think so hard of me. Indeed, I would not leave you but for good cause," she said. "I had hoped and expected to spend all my days at Lancaster Park, but my duty calls me elsewhere. I assure you it is as hard for me as for you. Think how hard it is for me, a poor lone woman, to have to cross the ocean—at my time of life, too! And then to have to take a child to raise and spend all my earnings on—a child that's no kin to me, either, you understand, my lady!"

CHAPTER III.

Lady Lancaster settled her gold-bowed spectacles on her long Roman nose, and fixed a keen, penetrating stare on the troubled face of her housekeeper.

"Whose child is it, and what is it all about, anyhow?" she sputtered, vaguely.

"It's my brother-in-law's child, and he's dead away off in New York somewhere, and the child's left to me—his penniless, friendless orphan child, left to me by the dead; and how could I refuse the charge, my lady?" inquired Mrs. West, reproachfully. "I should think the dead would come from his grave, away off yonder in America, to haunt me if I didn't do his bidding," cried she, glancing behind her with something like a shudder of superstitious fear.

"I didn't know you were simpleton enough to believe in ghosts, West," sniffed my lady, contemptuously. "And I didn't know you ever had a brother-in-law, either. Where has he been all these years?"

"If you will read this letter, Lady Lancaster, you will find out in fewer words than I can tell you," said Mrs. West, respectfully presenting her letter, which all this time she had been holding open in her hand.

My lady took the black-edged sheet into the grasp of her thin, bony hand, and ran her keen eyes down the written page.

"Dear Sister-in-Law"—it ran—"I know you've wondered many a time since I caught the gold fever and ran away to California, twenty years ago, what's become of the willful lad that you and John couldn't manage; although you tried so hard and so faithfully. I always meant to write to you some day, but I put it off from time to time in my hard, busy life, until now it's almost too late, and I seem to be writing to you from the borders of that other world where I've somehow heard my brother John went before me, and where I'm hastening now. For I'm dying, sister-in-law, and I'm quite sure that I shall be dead before this comes to your hand. Well, I've had ups and downs in this life, sister Lucy—good luck and ill luck—and now I'm dying I have one great care upon my mind. I'm leaving my little girl, my pretty Leonora—named so for her mother, who died when her baby was born—all alone in the cold, hard world. She is friendless, for we've led such a roving life once she was born that we have made no friends to aid us now in our extremity. Dear sister-in-law, you were always a good woman. You tried to do your duty by the wayward orphan boy who has so poorly repaid your care. Will you be kinder still? Will you come to America and take my child for your own? Will you give her a mother's love and care? Remember, she is friendless and forsaken in the world, without a living relative. What would become of her if you refused my dying prayer? I inclose a card with our New York address upon it. She will wait there after I am dead until you come for her. I feel sure that you will come; you will not disregard my dying wish and request. Forgive me all my ingratitude and thoughtlessness, sister Lucy, and be a mother to my darling little Leo when I am no more.

"Your dying brother,

"Richard West."

The letter rustled in Lady Lancaster's nervous grasp. She looked up thoughtfully at the patient, waiting woman.

"I could not refuse such a prayer as that, could I, my lady?" she asked, wistfully. "You see, he was my husband's only brother—poor, handsome, willful Dick. His parents were both dead, and he had only me and John, my husband. He was restless and ambitious. He ran away and left a letter that he should go to California and seek his fortune. From that day to this, never a word has been heard of Dick. And now he's dead—not so old, either; only in the prime of life—and he's left me his little girl. She will be a trouble, I know. I must give up my quiet, peaceful home here and make a new home for the child somewhere. But I can not refuse. I dare not, for John's and Dick's sake. I must go to America and get the child. I can not do less than he asked me. He was always restless, poor Dick. He could not stay in his grave if I refused his dying prayer."

CHAPTER IV.

Lady Lancaster, filled with chagrin and despair, sat gazing on the floor in silence. The thought of losing this trusty, capable woman, who had belonged to the staff of Lancaster Park so long, was most annoying to her. It had come upon her with all the suddenness of a calamity. She viewed it as nothing less.

She was an old woman, and she disliked exceedingly to have new faces around her. Under Mrs. West's efficient régime the affairs of the house had gone on with the precision and regularity of clock-work. It would take a new woman years to attain to her proficiency. She had grown to regard the good housekeeper almost as her own property—a piece of her personal goods and