ot a little
proud of him. She worships her husband."

"Is she kind to the first children?"

"For all I know. I don't think she has much to do with them. Archibald
is in the nursery, and the other two are mostly with the governess."

"I wonder," cried the governess, "how the tidings of Lady Isabel's death
were received at East Lynne?"

"I don't know anything about that. They held it as a jubilee, I should
say, and set all the bells in town to ring, and feasted the men upon
legs of mutton and onion sauce afterward. I should, I know. A brute
animal, deaf and dumb, such as a cow or a goose, clings to its
offspring, but _she_ abandoned hers. Are you going in Madame Vine?"

"I must go in now. Good evening to you."

She had sat till she could sit no longer; her very heartstrings were
wrung, and she might not rise up in defence of herself. Defence? Did she
not deserve more, ten thousand times more reproach than had met her ears
now? This girl did not say of her half what the world must say.

"There is a governess?"

"Nearly the first thing that Mr. Carlyle did, after his wife's moonlight
flitting, was to seek a governess, and she has been there ever since.
She is going to leave now; to be married, Joyce told me."

"Are you much at East Lynne?"

Afy shook her head. "I am not going much, I can tell you, where I am
looked down upon. Mrs. Carlyle does not favor me. She knew that her
brother Richard would have given his hand to marry me, and she resents
it. Not such a great catch, I'm sure, that Dick Hare, even if he had
gone on right," continued Afy, somewhat after the example of the fox,
looking at the unattainable grapes. "He had no brains to speak of; and
what he had were the color of a peacock's tail--green."

To bed at the usual time, but not to sleep. What she had heard only
increased her vain, insensate longing. A stepmother at East Lynne, and
one of her children gliding on to death! Oh! To be with them! To see
them once again! To purchase that boon, she would willingly forfeit all
the rest of her existence.

Her frame was fevered; the bed was fevered; and she arose and paced
the room. This state of mind would inevitably bring on bodily illness,
possibly an attack of the brain. She dreaded that; for there was
no telling what she might reveal in her delirium. Her temples were
throbbing, her heart was beating, and she once more threw herself upon
the bed, and pressed the pillow down upon her forehead. There is
n