ined of the
treatment which she had received, and they were a little prejudiced
against her in consequence.

Miss Brooke was a good woman, and, to some extent, a just woman; but it
was scarcely possible for her to judge Lesley correctly. All Miss
Brooke's traditions favored the cult of the woman who worked: and
Lesley, like her mother before her, had the look of a tall, fair
lily--one of those who toil not, neither do they spin. Miss Brooke was
quite too liberal-minded to have any great prejudice against a girl
because she had been educated in a French convent, though naturally she
thought it the worst place of training that could have been secured for
her; and she had made up her mind at once, when she saw Lesley, that
although there might be "no great harm" in the poor child, she was
probably as frivolous, as shallow-hearted, and as ignorant as the
ordinary French school-girl was supposed to be.

With Sarah the case was different. Sarah was an ardent Protestant, of a
strict Calvinist type, and she had taken up the impression that Miss
Lesley must needs be a Romanist. Now this was not the case, for Lesley
had always been allowed to go to her own church, see her own clergyman,
and hold aloof from the devotional exercises prescribed for the other
girls. But Sarah believed firmly that she belonged to the Church of
Rome, and she did not feel at all easy in her mind at staying under the
same roof with her. She made this remark to Miss Brooke on the third
day after Lesley's arrival, and was offended at the burst of laughter
with which Miss Brooke received it.

"Do you think the house will fall in, Sarah? or that you will be
corrupted?"

"I think I may hold myself safe, ma'am," said Sarah, with dignity. "But
I'm not so sure about the house."

She stood with her arms folded, grimly surveying her mistress, who, if
the truth must be told, was lying on a sofa in her bedroom, smoking a
cigarette. Sarah knew her mistress' tastes, and had grown generally
tolerant of them, but she still looked on the cigarettes with
disapproval. Miss Brooke was discreet enough to smoke only in her own
room or in her brother's study--a fact which had mollified Sarah a
little when her mistress first began the practice.

"The minute you smoke one o' them nasty things in the street, ma'am, I
shall give notice," she had said.

And Miss Brooke had quietly answered: "Very well, Sarah, we'll wait till
then."

It must be added, for the benefit of a