her paramount opinion and authority
unshaken by those two astute viceroys, who,
in their own departments, ruled absolutely
as they liked—always keeping up the
farce of implicit deference to the queen-
régnant.

"Well, Mary Hind, come and let me
look at you," she began, as Maud stood at
a certain distance, gazing in wonderment
at the disordered room and its occupant.
"Draw nearer—well! you received my
letter, and you are come. H'm! I wonder
whether you will suit me. You're too
good-looking, eh, Rouse? That's a
drawback, h'm! Pray, how old are you?"

"One-and-twenty, ma'am."

".And never been out to service yet!
How comes that?"

Maud did not know how to reply to this
question. Fortunately Mrs. Cartaret, as was
her wont when she was impatient,
suggested an answer herself.

"Got sick of your life at home? And
the curate gave you a certificate to get you
a situation, I suppose? Hein?"

"Yes, ma'am, that is it."

"Well— I don't know what to say—
hem! an inexperienced girl—it is a trial,
look you. Mine is a hard place; I warn
you of that. Got good lungs, eh?"

"I believe so, ma'am."

"Hold out your hand—Dieu de Dieu!
Why it doesn't look as if you had ever
done a day's work. You're not a fine lady,
eh?"

"No, ma'am. I want to work. That
is why I go to service. I had too little to
do at home."

"Good—and you can read? Aloud, I
mean—you have been taught that at
school?"

"Yes, ma'am—and French, too, though
perhaps not very well."

"Mon Dieu! you read French? This
is unexpected. Here, sit down—take that,
and read me a page."

Maud did as she was bidden. It was a
volume of the Grand Cyrus of Mademoiselle
de Scudéry; and Maud accomplished her
task, threading the flowery involutions of
the courtly old French more deftly than
many English-bred young ladies could have
done.

"Rouse!" cried Mrs. Cartaret, clapping
her hands, "she's a treasure. Don't be
jealous, my good creature, but she'll be
worth her weight in gold to me. My eyes,
you see, Mary Hind, for all that they are
still bright, are very little use to me. I
cannot read long: and no one here reads
French—even my own son doesn't like it,
hélas! Is Mr.Lowndes gone out shooting,
Rouse? Well, there is no use then in
my getting up yet awhile. Take the girl
to her room, and then let her come back
to me. I will have a chapter of that
beautiful book before I leave my bed—I will."

Mrs. Rouse, judging from the expression
of her face, was not too well-pleased at
the discovery of this unlooked-for
accomplishment in her new assistant; but she
took Maud to her room, and gave her
some instructions as to her duties, and the
hours of the household meals. And while
she is thus employed we may as well take
the opportunity of giving a brief sketch of
Mrs.Cartaret's family history, the
circumstances of which Maud only learnt by
degrees, but which, if here stated, will render
it easier to understand the many antagonistic
elements into which the girl now
found herself suddenly cast.

Mrs. Cartaret's father was an English
officer, and a détenu during the war with
France in the early years of this century.
During his obligatory residence in France
he married Mademoiselle de B——, a
woman of high rank, no longer very young,
whose early girlhood had been passed at
Louis the Sixteenth's court, where her
father held a high post, and who had been
reduced to great poverty by the confiscation
of the family estates. Her father had died
in exile: then the daughter had returned to
France, and had gone to live with an old
cousin at Bordeaux, where she met and
fascinated Captain Dallas. The fruit of this
union was one child, the old lady with whom
this story has now to do. Born in France,
she came over to England with her parents
at the peace, and remained here until her
father's death a few years later. But the
language she first spoke was her mother's;
all her tastes and sympathies were French,
or, more properly speaking, Bourbon—and
in spite of the Dallas blood in her veins,
she never spoke or thought of herself as
an Englishwoman. She had inherited her
mother's passionate attachment to the
unhappy house whose misfortunes she had
shared. At the Restoration, she had
gone over with her mother to greet Louis
the Eighteenth (Captain Dallas was now
dead), and had returned to these shores
indignant after the Revolution of 1830.
Shortly after this it was that she met
Mr. Cartaret, a plain English country
squire, who had no foreign predilections,
no enthusiasms, no very strong convictions
of any sort, I believe, but who became