lish woman, Madeleine
Winterbourne," nor as she had seen her first, on the terrace with Harry
Wharton. It did not please Lady Selina to feel herself in any way
eclipsed or even rivalled by such an unimportant person as this strange
and ridiculous girl. Yet it crossed her mind with a stab, as she lay
resting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that never
in all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into _her_ face
with the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she had
seen on Harry Wharton's, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terrace
together--nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonald
had put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine's feet.

There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night.
Wharton was to be among the guests. He was fast becoming one of the
_habitues_ of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to Lady
Selina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozing
peacefully in a deep arm-chair.

Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, which
worked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenial
to it, run over some possibilities of the future.

She was interrupted by the entrance of her maid, who, with the quickened
breath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to her
formidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids was
very ill. Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who always
attended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness
_might_ turn to rheumatic fever.

"Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!" said Lady Selina. "Let Mrs.
Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and make
arrangements. You understand?"

The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she had
been crying.

"If your ladyship would but let her stay," she said timidly, "we'd all
take our turns at nursing her. She comes from Ireland, perhaps you'll
remember, my lady. She's no friends in London, and she's frightened to
death of going to the hospital."

"That's nonsense!" said Lady Selina, sternly. "Do you think I can have
all the work of the house put out because some one is ill? She might die
even--one never knows. Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her about
her wages, and to look out for somebody else at once."

The girl's mouth set sullenly as she went about her work--put out the
shining satin dress, th