nce caused her heart to bound within her.
Control herself as she would, she could not quite hide her feverish
interest.

"Do you come from West Lynne?"

"Yes. Horrid place. Mrs. Latimer took a house there soon after I went to
live with her. I'd rather she'd taken it at Botany Bay."

"Why do you not like it?"

"Because I don't," was Afy's satisfactory answer.

"Do you know East Lynne?" resumed Lady Isabel, her heart beating and her
brain whirling, as she deliberated how she could put all the questions
she wished to ask.

"I ought to know it," returned Afy. "My own sister, Miss Hallijohn, is
head maid there. Why, do you know it, Madame Vine?"

Lady Isabel hesitated; she was deliberating upon her answer.

"Some years ago I was staying in the neighborhood for a little time,"
she said. "I should like to hear of the Carlyles again; they were a nice
family."

Afy tossed her head.

"Ah! But there have been changes since that. I dare say you knew them in
the time of Lady Isabel?"

Another pause.

"Lady Isabel? Yes she was Mr. Carlyle's wife."

"And a nice wife she made him!" ironically rejoined Afy. "You must
have heard of it, Madame Vine, unless you lived in the wood. She
elope--abandoned him and her children."

"Are the children living?"

"Yes, poor things. But the one's on the road to the churchyard--if
ever I saw threatened consumption yet. Joyce, that's my sister, is in a
flaring temper when I say it. She thinks it will get strong again."

Lady Isabel passed her handkerchief across her moist brow.

"Which of the children is it?" she faintly asked. "Isabel?"

"Isabel!" retorted Afy. "Who's Isabel?"

"The eldest child, I mean; Miss Isabel Carlyle."

"There's no Isabel. There's Lucy. She's the only daughter."

"When--when--I knew them, there was only one daughter; the other two
were boys; I remember quite well that she was called Isabel."

"Stay," said Afy; "now you speak of it, what was it that I heard? It was
Wilson told me, I recollect--she's the nurse. Why, the very night that
his wife went away Mr. Carlyle gave orders that the child in future
should be called Lucy, her second name. No wonder," added Afy, violently
indignant, "that he could no lager endure the sound of her mother's or
suffer the child to bear it."

"No wonder," murmured Lady Isabel. "Which child is it that's ill?"

"It's William, the eldest boy. He is not to say ill, but he is as thin
as a herring, with an unnaturally bright