she getting ready, Catherine?" asked Lady Verner.

"I think not, my lady."

"Go to her, Lionel, and ask her if she knows the time. A pretty thing if
you arrive at the station after the train is in!"

Lionel quitted the room. Outside in the hall stood Catherine, waiting
for him.

"Miss Verner has met with a little accident and hurt her foot, sir," she
whispered. "She can't walk."

"Not walk!" exclaimed Lionel. "Where is she?"

"She is in the store-room, sir; where it happened."

Lionel went to the store-room, a small boarded room at the back of the
hall. A young lady sat there; a very pretty white foot in a wash-hand
basin of warm water, and a shoe and stocking lying; near, as if hastily
thrown off.

"Why, Decima! what is this?"

[Illustration: "Why, Decima! what is this?"]

She lifted her face. A face whose features were of the highest order of
beauty, regular as if chiselled from marble, and little less colourless.
But for the large, earnest, dark-blue eyes, so full of expression, it
might have been accused of coldness. In sleep, or in perfect repose,
when the eyelids were bent, it looked strangely cold and pure. Her dark
hair was braided; and she wore a dress something the same in colour as
Lady Verner's.

"Lionel, what shall I do? And to-day of all days! I shall be obliged to
tell mamma; I cannot walk a step."

"What is the injury? How did you meet with it?"

"I got on a chair. I was looking for some old Indian ornaments that I
know are in that high cupboard, wishing to put them in Miss Tempest's
room, and somehow the chair tilted with me, and I fell upon my foot. It
is only a sprain; but I cannot walk."

"How do you know it is only a sprain, Decima? I shall send West to you."

"Thank you all the same, Lionel, but, if you please, I don't like Dr.
West well enough to have him," was Miss Verner's answer. "See! I don't
think I can walk."

She took her foot out of the basin, and attempted to try. But for Lionel
she would have fallen; and her naturally pale face became paler from the
pain.

"And you say you will not have Dr. West!" he cried, gently putting her
into the chair again. "You must allow me to judge for you, Decima."

"Then, Lionel, I'll have Jan--if I must have any one. I have more faith
in him," she added, lifting her large blue eyes, "than in Dr. West."

"Let it be Jan, then, Decima. Send one of the servants for him at once.
What is to be done about Miss Tempest?"

"You must go alon