generally using a
half-mocking tone, as if defying the tenderness that awoke in spite of
her, but always of her original home, and especially of her sister.
Alice ventured to ask whether they often heard from one another.

'Good soul, she always writes at Christmas and on my birthday. I know
as well as possible that I shall find a letter poste restante wherever
she heard of me last, and that she hasn't done--I'm ashamed to say for
how long--really, I think not since I let her know that I couldn't
stand Ivy Lodge, Dockforth, at any price, when she wrote to Monaco on
seeing poor Houghton's death in the paper.'

There was a good deal of rambling talk of this kind, to which Alice
listened tenderly and compassionately, making no attempt at persuasion,
only doing what was possible for the poor lady's comfort. She had
procured on her way some fruit and jelly, and some good English tea, at
which Mrs. Houghton laughed, saying, 'Time was, I called it cat-lap!
Somehow it will seem the elixir of life now, redolent, even milkless,
of the days when we were young.'

Then she revealed something of her long, suffering, almost ghastly
nights, and Alice gently told how her old friend, Mrs. Nugent, suffered
from sleeplessness, and kept a store of soothing psalms and hymns in
her memory. There was a little laugh. 'That's for you good folk. I
haven't such a thing about me! Come, Par exemple!' and Alice repeated
the first thing she could remember, the verse beginning 'God, who
madest earth and heaven.'

'That's one of your charms, is it? Well, it would not be too much for
me if my poor old memory would hold it. Say it again.'

Alice generally had about her a tiny prayer-book with 'Hymns, Ancient
and Modern,' attached. It had been a gift from Mary Nugent, and she
was fond of it, but the opportunity was not to be lost, and she took it
out, saying she would bring a larger one and reclaim it. And, as she
was finally taking leave, she said with a throbbing heart, 'Do you know
that you have betrayed your sister's address? I shall write to her
now.'

'If you do--!' cried Mrs. Houghton, in a tone like threatening
deprecation, but with a little of her strange banter in it besides.
Alice's mind had been made up to do the thing, and she had not felt it
honest not to give due warning of her intentions. Even now she was not
certain of the lady's surname, but she trusted to her husband's
knowledge of Mrs. Houghton's previous history; and