ore difficult
for her to imagine that Philip Sheldon, the stockbroker, was the same
Philip she had carried in her stout arms, and hushed upon her breast
forty years ago, than it would have been to fancy the dead who had
lived in those days restored to life and walking by her side, still,
she could not forget that such things had been, and could not refrain
from looking at her master with more loving eyes because of that memory.

A strange dark cloud had arisen between her and her master's image
during the latter part of her service in Fitzgeorge-street; but, little
by little, the cloud had melted away, leaving the familiar image clear
and unshadowed as of old. She had suffered her mind to be filled by a
suspicion so monstrous, that for a time it held her as by some fatal
spell; but with reflection came the assurance that this thing could not
be. Day by day she saw the man whom she had suspected going about the
common business of life, coldly serene of aspect, untroubled of manner,
confronting fortune with his head erect, living quietly in the house
where he had been wont to live, haunted by no dismal shadows, subject
to no dark hours of remorse, no sudden access of despair, always
equable, business-like, and untroubled; and she told herself that such
a man could not be guilty of the unutterable horror she had imagined.

For a year things had gone on thus, and then came the marriage with
Mrs. Halliday. Mr. Sheldon went down to Barlingford for the performance
of that interesting ceremony; and Nancy Woolper bade farewell to the
house in Fitzgeorge-street, and handed the key to the agent, who was to
deliver it in due course to Mr. Sheldon's successor.

To-day, after a lapse of more than ten years, Mrs. Woolper sat in the
stockbroker's study, facing the scrutinising gaze of those bright black
eyes, which had been familiar to her of old, and which had lost none of
their cold glitter in the wear and tear of life.

"Then you think you can be of some use in the house, as a kind of
overlooker of the other servants, eh, Nancy--to prevent waste, and
gadding out of doors, and so on?" said Mr. Sheldon, interrogatively.

"Ay, sure, that I can, Mr. Philip," answered the old woman promptly;
"and if I don't save you more money than I cost you, the sooner you
turn me out o' doors the better. I know what London servants are, and I
know their ways; and if Miss Georgy doesn't take to the housekeeping, I
know as how things must be hugger-