ch things
as that?"

"I am driven to know. Father is ill, and cannot come himself."

"Oh, laws! I am so uncomfortable. I never will take stuff from Lotta
Luxa again. She thinks a man is the same as a horse."

This little episode put a stop to the conversation about the
title-deeds, and then Madame Zamenoy entered the room. Madame Zamenoy
was a woman of a portly demeanour, well fitted to do honour by her
personal presence to that carriage and horses with which Providence and
an indulgent husband had blessed her. And when she was dressed in her
full panoply of French millinery--the materials of which had come from
England, and the manufacture of which had taken place in Prague--she
looked the carriage and horses well enough. But of a morning she was
accustomed to go about the house in a pale-tinted wrapper, which,
pale-tinted as it was, should have been in the washing-tub much oftener
than was the case with it--if not for cleanliness, then for mere decency
of appearance.

And the mode in which she carried her matutinal curls, done up with
black pins, very visible to the eye, was not in itself becoming. The
handkerchief which she wore in lieu of cap, might have been excused on
the score of its ugliness, as Madame Zamenoy was no longer young, had
it not been open to such manifest condemnation for other sins. And in
this guise she would go about the house from morning to night on days
not made sacred by the use of the carriage. Now Lotta Luxa was clean in
the midst of her work; and one would have thought that the cleanliness
of the maid would have shamed the slatternly ways of the mistress. But
Madame Zamenoy and Lotta Luxa had lived together long, and probably
knew each other well.

"Well, Nina," she said, "so you've come at last?"

"Yes; I've come, aunt. And as I want to say something very particular
to you yourself, perhaps Ziska won't mind going out of the room for a
minute." Nina had not sat down since she had been in the room, and was
now standing before her aunt with almost militant firmness. She was
resolved to rush at once at the terrible subject which she had in hand,
but she could not do so in the presence of her cousin Ziska.

Ziska groaned audibly. "Ziska isn't well this morning," said Madame
Zamenoy, "and I do not wish to have him disturbed."

"Then perhaps you'll come into the front parlour, aunt."

"What can there be that you cannot say before Ziska?"

"There is something, aunt," said Nina.

If