d always busy with a mass of soft fleecy wool. No one heard
her ever voluntarily conversing with her patroness. They would drive
together for hours, or pass whole evenings in the same room, scarcely
exchanging a word. "Just so, my dear," she would say, in return to any
observation made to her by Mrs. Cheyne. "Just so Mewlstone," a young
wag once nicknamed her.

People stared incredulously when Mrs. Cheyne assured them her
companion was a very superior woman. They thought it was only her
satire, and did not believe her in the least. They would have stared
still more if they had really known the extent of Miss Mewlstone's
acquirements.

"She seems so stupid, as though she cannot talk," one of Mrs. Cheyne's
friends said.

"Oh, yes, she can talk, and very well too," returned that lady,
quietly, "but she knows that I do not care about it; her silence is
her great virtue in my eyes. And then she has tact, and knows when to
keep out of the way," finished Mrs. Cheyne, with the utmost frankness;
and, indeed, it may be doubted whether any other person would have
retained her position so long at the White House.

Mrs. Cheyne was no favorite with the young pastor, nevertheless she
was an exceedingly handsome woman. Before the bloom of her youth had
worn off she had been considered absolutely beautiful. As regarded the
form of her features, there was no fault to be found, but her
expression was hardly pleasing. There was a hardness that people found
a little repelling,--a bitter, dissatisfied droop of the lip, a
weariness of gloom in the dark eyes, and a tendency to satire in her
speech, that alienated people's sympathy.

"I am unhappy, but pity me if you dare!" seemed to be written legibly
upon her countenance; and those who knew her best held their peace in
her presence, and then went away and spoke softly to each other of the
life that seemed wasted and the heart that was so hardened with its
trouble. "What would the world be if every one were to bear their
sorrows so badly?" they would say. "There is something heathenish in
such utter want of resignation. Oh, yes, it was very sad, her losing
her husband and children, but it all happened four or five years ago;
and you know"--And here people's voices dropped a little ominously,
for there were vague hints afloat that things had not always gone on
smoothly at the White House, even when Mrs. Cheyne had her husband.
She had been an only child, and had married the only survivor