ht before last with Lord Bearwarden, and
twice with Dick, besides going down with him to supper. I don't like
finding fault, Maud, but I have a duty to perform, and I speak to you
as if you were my own child."

"How can you be sure of that?" retorted incorrigible Maud. "You never
had one."

This was a sore point, as Miss Bruce well knew. Aunt Agatha's line of
battle was sadly broken through, and her pieces huddled together on
the board. She began to lose her head, and her temper with it.

"You speak in a very unbecoming tone, Miss Bruce," said she angrily.
"You force me into saying things I would much rather keep to myself. I
don't wish to remind you of your position in this house."

It was now Maud's turn to advance her strongest pieces--castles,
rooks, and all.

"You remind me of it often enough," she replied, with her haughtiest
air--an air which, notwithstanding its assumption of superiority,
certainly made her look her best; "if not in words, at least in
manner, twenty times a day. You think I don't see it, Mrs. Stanmore,
or that I don't mind it, because I've too much pride to resent it as
it deserves. I am indebted to you, certainly, for a great deal--the
roof that shelters me, and the food I eat. I owe you as much as your
carriage-horses, and a little less than your servants, for I do my
work and get no wages. Never fear but I shall pay up everything some
day; perhaps very soon. You had better get your bill made out, so as
to send it in on the morning of my departure. I wish the time had come
to settle it now."

Mrs. Stanmore was aghast. Very angry, no doubt, but yet more
surprised, and perhaps the least thing cowed. Her cap, her laces,
the lockets round her neck, the very hair of her head, vibrated with
excitement. Maud, cool, pale, impassable, was sure to win at last,
waiting, like the superior chess-player, for that final mistake which
gives an adversary checkmate.

It came almost immediately. Mrs. Stanmore set down her sherry, because
the hand that held her glass shook so she could not raise it to her
lips. "You are rude and impertinent," said she; "and if you really
think so wickedly, the sooner you leave this house the better, though
you _are_ my brother's child; and--and--Maud, I don't mean it. But how
can you say such things? I never expected to be spoken to like this."

Then the elder lady began to cry, and the game was over. Before the
second course came in a reconciliation took place. Maud