ment.

"How you've altered it! The Vavasours made it hideous. But I've only
been in this room twice before, though my people have lived here thirty
years. We were never smart enough for Lady Emily."

He colored as he spoke, and Diana suspected in him a memory of small
past humiliations. Evidently he was sensitive as well as shy.

"Hard work--dear young man!" she said, with a smile, and a stretch, as
the door closed upon him. "But after all--_'que j'aime le militaire'!_
Now, shall we go back to work?"

There were still some books to unpack. Presently Mrs. Colwood found
herself helping to carry a small but heavy box of papers to the
sitting-room which Diana had arranged for herself next to her bedroom.
Mrs. Colwood noticed that before Diana asked her assistance she
dismissed her new maid, who had been till then actively engaged in the
unpacking. Miss Mallory herself unlocked the trunk in which the
despatch-box had arrived, and took it out. The box had an old green
baize covering which was much frayed and worn. Diana placed it on the
floor of her bedroom, where Mrs. Colwood had been helping her in various
unpackings, and went away for a minute to clear a space for it in the
locked wall-cupboard to which it was to be consigned. Her companion,
left alone, happened to see that an old mended tear in the green baize
had given way in Diana's handling of the box, and quite involuntarily
her eyes caught a brass plate on the morocco lid, which bore the words,
"Sparling papers." Diana came back at the moment, and perceived the
uncovered label. She flushed a little, hesitated, and then said, looking
first at the label and then at Mrs. Colwood: "I think I should like you
to know--my name was not always Mallory. We were Sparlings--but my
father took the name of Mallory after my mother's death. It was _his_
mother's name, and there was an old Mallory uncle who left him a
property. I believe he was glad to change his name. He never spoke to me
of any Sparling relations. He was an only child, and I always suppose
his father must have been very unkind to him--and that they quarrelled.
At any rate, he quite dropped the name, and never would let me speak of
it. My mother had hardly any relations either--only one sister who
married and went to Barbadoes. So our old name was very soon forgotten.
And please"--she looked up appealingly--"now that I have told you, will
you forget it too? It always seemed to hurt papa to hear it, and I never
c