t up in the
deepening obscurity of the room. "Have you got money in it?" she asked.

"No; only a few family papers, and a letter from my father, introducing
me to an elderly lady in England--a connection of his by marriage, whom
I have never seen. The lady has consented to receive me as her companion
and reader. If I don't return to England soon, some other person may get
the place."

"Have you no other resource?"

"None. My education has been neglected--we led a wild life in the
far West. I am quite unfit to go out as a governess. I am absolutely
dependent on this stranger, who receives me for my father's sake."
She put the letter-case back in the pocket of her cloak, and ended her
little narrative as unaffectedly as she had begun it. "Mine is a sad
story, is it not?" she said.

The voice of the nurse answered her suddenly and bitterly in these
strange words:

"There are sadder stories than yours. There are thousands of miserable
women who would ask for no greater blessing than to change places with
you."

Grace started. "What can there possibly be to envy in such a lot as
mine?"

"Your unblemished character, and your prospect of being established
honorably in a respectable house."

Grace turned in her chair, and looked wonderingly into the dim corner of
the room.

"How strangely you say that!" she exclaimed. There was no answer; the
shadowy figure on the chest never moved. Grace rose impulsively, and
drawing her chair after her, approached the nurse. "Is there some
romance in your life?" she asked. "Why have you sacrificed yourself to
the terrible duties which I find you performing here? You interest me
indescribably. Give me your hand."

Mercy shrank back, and refused the offered hand.

"Are we not friends?" Grace asked, in astonishment.

"We can never be friends."

"Why not?"

The nurse was dumb. Grace called to mind the hesitation that she had
shown when she had mentioned her name, and drew a new conclusion from
it. "Should I be guessing right," she asked, eagerly, "if I guessed you
to be some great lady in disguise?"

Mercy laughed to herself--low and bitterly. "I a great lady!" she said,
contemptuously. "For Heaven's sake, let us talk of something else!"

Grace's curiosity was thoroughly roused. She persisted. "Once more," she
whispered, persuasively, "let us be friends." She gently laid her hand
as she spoke on Mercy's shoulder. Mercy roughly shook it off. There
was a rudeness in the actio