on! Nell, you must
let me take you away----"

Nell shook her head, smiling still, but with that "stubborn" expression
in her eyes which the other woman remembered.

"And leave Dick!" she said. "No, no! Don't say another word! Call us
proud and stiff-necked, if you like--we're not, really--but neither Dick
nor I could take anything from any one while we have enough of our own.
If we could--if ever we 'run short,' and are in danger of starvation,
then----But that won't happen. You don't know how clever Dick is, and
how much they think of him at the works! He'll be in directly, with his
hands and face all smutty, and famishing for his tea----" She laughed as
she fetched another cup. "And you've come just in time. Sit down and
leave off staring at me so reproachfully, and tell me all the news."

"No," said Lady Wolfer. "You tell me; yes, tell me all about it, Nell."

Nell smiled as she poured out the tea--the smile which bravely checks
the sigh.

"There is not much to tell," she said. "When I got home--to Shorne
Mills"--should she never be able to speak the words without a pang?--"I
found mamma unwell, very unwell. She was quite changed----"

"That is why she sent for you, of course," said Lady Wolfer. "Nell, why
did you go without seeing me, without saying good-by?"

"I had to leave at once," said Nell timidly, and fighting with her
rising color.

"That day! I shall never forget it," said Lady Wolfer softly, and
looking straight before her. "Yes, I have something to tell you, dear.
But go on."

"Mamma was ill; but I was not frightened--not at first. She was always
an invalid, you know, and I thought that she would get better. But she
did not; she got weaker every day, and----" The tears came to her eyes,
and she turned away to the fire for a moment. "Molly and I nursed her.
Molly was our servant, and like a friend indeed, and the parting with
her----She did not suffer much, and she was so patient, so changed. She
was like a child at last; she could not bear me to leave her. I used to
think that she--she was not very fond of me; but--but all that was
changed before she died, and she grew to like me as much as she liked
Dick. He had always been her favorite. To the last she did not think she
was going to die, and--and--the evening before she went we"--she
laughed, the laugh so near akin to tears--"we cut out a paper pattern
for a new dress for her--one of your patterns."

"My poor Nell!" murmured Lady Wolfer.