es it."

"Sixty years," said the Duchess, musing. "It was a long time--wasn't
it?--to live in this little house, and scarcely ever leave it. Oh, she
had quite a circle of her own. For many years her funny little sister
lived here, too. And there was a time, Freddie says, when there was
almost a rivalry between them and two other famous old ladies who lived
in Bruton Street--what _was_ their name? Oh, the Miss Berrys! Horace
Walpole's Miss Berrys. All sorts of famous people, I believe, have sat
in these chairs. But the Miss Berrys won."

"Not in years? Cousin Mary outlived them."

"Ah, but she was dead long before she died," said the Duchess as she
came to perch on the arm of Julie's chair, and threw her arm round her
friend's neck. "After her little sister departed this life she became a
very silent, shrivelled thing--except for her religion--and very few
people saw her. She took a fancy to me--which was odd, wasn't it, when
I'm such a worldling?--and she let me come in and out. Every morning she
read the Psalms and Lessons, with her old maid, who was just her own
age--in this very chair. And two or three times a month Freddie would
slip round and read them with her--you know Freddie's very religious.
And then she'd work at flannel petticoats for the poor, or something of
that kind, till lunch. Afterwards she'd go and read the Bible to people
in the workhouse or in hospital. When she came home, the butler brought
her the _Times_; and sometimes you'd find her by the fire, straining her
old eyes over 'a little Dante.' And she always dressed for
dinner--everything was quite smart--and her old butler served her.
Afterwards her maid played dominoes or spillikins with her--all her life
she never touched a card--and they read a chapter, and Cousin Mary
played a hymn on that funny little old piano there in the corner, and at
ten they all went to bed. Then, one morning, the maid went in to wake
her, and she saw her dear sharp nose and chin against the light, and her
hands like that, in front of her--and--well, I suppose, she'd gone to
play hymns in heaven--dear Cousin Mary! Julie, isn't it strange the kind
of lives so many of us have to lead? Julie"--the little Duchess laid her
cheek against her friend's--"do you believe in another life?"

"You forget I'm a Catholic," said Julie, smiling rather doubtfully.

"_Are_ you, Julie? I'd forgotten."

"The good nuns at Bruges took care of that."

"Do you ever go to mass?"

"Some