st
slight scar of a brand, and she thought of Owen's prophecy.

Mrs. Morris led her into a comfortable parlour called The Room. Here
tea was made ready, and Cytherea sat down, looking, whenever occasion
allowed, at Mrs. Morris with great interest and curiosity, to discover,
if possible, something in her which should give a clue to the secret
of her knowledge of herself, and the recommendation based upon it.
But nothing was to be learnt, at any rate just then. Mrs. Morris was
perpetually getting up, feeling in her pockets, going to cupboards,
leaving the room two or three minutes, and trotting back again.

'You'll excuse me, Mrs. Graye,' she said, 'but 'tis the old gentleman's
birthday, and they always have a lot of people to dinner on that
day, though he's getting up in years now. However, none of them are
sleepers--she generally keeps the house pretty clear of lodgers (being a
lady with no intimate friends, though many acquaintances), which, though
it gives us less to do, makes it all the duller for the younger maids in
the house.' Mrs. Morris then proceeded to give in fragmentary speeches
an outline of the constitution and government of the estate.

'Now, are you sure you have quite done tea? Not a bit or drop more? Why,
you've eaten nothing, I'm sure.... Well, now, it is rather inconvenient
that the other maid is not here to show you the ways of the house a
little, but she left last Saturday, and Miss Aldclyffe has been making
shift with poor old clumsy me for a maid all yesterday and this morning.
She is not come in yet. I expect she will ask for you, Mrs. Graye, the
first thing.... I was going to say that if you have really done tea,
I will take you upstairs, and show you through the wardrobes--Miss
Aldclyffe's things are not laid out for to-night yet.'

She preceded Cytherea upstairs, pointed out her own room, and then took
her into Miss Aldclyffe's dressing-room, on the first-floor; where,
after explaining the whereabouts of various articles of apparel, the
housekeeper left her, telling her that she had an hour yet upon her
hands before dressing-time. Cytherea laid out upon the bed in the next
room all that she had been told would be required that evening, and then
went again to the little room which had been appropriated to herself.

Here she sat down by the open window, leant out upon the sill like
another Blessed Damozel, and listlessly looked down upon the brilliant
pattern of colours formed by the flower