e girl said. 'Even
grandmamma, who was a saint, says so in her _Domestic Outpourings_'
(religious memoirs privately printed in 1838). 'We cannot amuse Mrs.
Brown-Smith, and it is so kind and chivalrous of Anne.'

'To neglect you?'

'No, to do duty for Tom and Dick,' who were her brothers, and who would
not greatly have entertained the fair visitor had they been present.

Matilda was the kind of woman whom we all adore as represented in the
characters of Fielding's Amelia and Sophia. Such she was, so gracious
and yielding, in her overt demeanour, but, alas, poor Matilda's pillow
was often wet with her tears. She was loyal; she would not believe evil:
she crushed her natural jealousy 'as a vice of blood, upon the threshold
of the mind.'

Mrs. Brown-Smith was nearly as unhappy as the girl. The more she hated
the Vidame--and she detested him more deeply every day--the more her
heart bled for Matilda. Mrs. Brown-Smith also had her secret conferences
with Mrs. Malory.

'Nothing will shake her belief in that man,' said Mrs. Malory.

'Your daughter is the best girl I ever met,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith. 'The
best tempered, the least suspicious, the most loyal. And I am doing my
worst to make her hate me. Oh, I can't go on!' Here Mrs. Brown-Smith
very greatly surprised her hostess by bursting into tears.

'You must not desert us now,' said the elder lady. 'The better you think
of poor Matilda--and she _is_ a good girl--the more you ought to help
her.'

It was the 8th of August, no other visitors were at the house, a shooting
party was expected to arrive on the 11th. Mrs. Brown-Smith dried her
tears. 'It must be done,' she said, 'though it makes me sick to think of
it.'

Next day she met the Vidame in the park, and afterwards held a long
conversation with Mrs. Malory. As for the Vidame, he was in feverish
high spirits, he devoted himself to Matilda, in fact Mrs. Brown-Smith had
insisted on such dissimulation, as absolutely necessary at this juncture
of affairs. So Matilda bloomed again, like a rose that had been 'washed,
just washed, in a shower.' The Vidame went about humming the airs of the
country which he had honoured by adopting it as the cradle of his
ancestry.

On the morning of the following day, while the Vidame strayed with
Matilda in the park, Mrs. Brown-Smith was closeted with Mrs. Malory in
her boudoir.

'Everything is arranged,' said Mrs. Brown-Smith. 'I, guilty and reckless
that I am, h