me folks!"

The next morning, all the Maidens--the invalid, as usual, excepted--came
trooping up one after another, to pay their respects to the new lady of
the manor.

Lady Betty came first; then Mrs Dorothy and Mrs Eleanor, together;
after a little while, Mrs Clarissa; and lastly, Mrs Jane.

"My dear Mrs Anne, I remember you well, though perhaps you can scarce
recollect me," said Mrs Dorothy, "for you were but nine years old the
last time that I saw you. May the Lord bless you, my dear, and make you
a blessing!"

"Oh, I don't doubt I shall do my duty," was the response of Mrs
Latrobe, which very much satisfied herself and greatly dissatisfied Mrs
Dorothy.

"'Tis delightful to see you back, dear Madam Latrobe!" said Mrs
Clarissa, gushingly. "How touching must it be to return to the home of
your youth, after so many years of banishment!"

Mrs Latrobe had not felt in the least touched, and hardly knew how to
reply. "Oh, to be sure!" she said. "Glad to see you," said Mrs Jane.
"Great loss we've had in Madam. Hope you'll be as good as she was. My
sister desired me to make her compliments. Can't stir off the sofa.
Fine morning!"

When the Maidens left the Abbey--which they did together--they compared
notes on the new reign.

Lady Betty's sense of decorum was very much shocked. Mrs Latrobe had
not spoken a word of her late mother, and had hinted at changes in
matters which had existed at White-Ladies from time immemorial.

Mrs Clarissa was charmed with the new lady's manners and mourning, both
which she thought faultless.

Mrs Eleanor thought "she was a bit shy, poor thing! We must make
allowances, my dear friends--we must make allowances!"

"Make fiddlestrings!" growled Mrs Jane. "She's Anne Furnival still,
and she'll be Anne Furnival to the end of the chapter. As if I didn't
know Nancy! Ever drive a jibbing horse?"

Mrs Clarissa, who was thus suddenly appealed to, declared in a shocked
tone that she never drove a horse of any description since she was born.

"Ah, well! I have," resumed Mrs Jane, ignoring the scandalised tone of
her sister Maiden: "and that's just Nancy Furnival. She's as sleek in
the coat as ever a Barbary mare. But you'll not get her along the road
to Tewkesbury, without you make her think you want to drive her to
Gloucester. I heard plenty of folks pitying Madam when she bolted. My
word!--but I pitied somebody else a vast deal more, and that was Charles
Latrobe. I would