a striking-looking person; in spite of the gray hair
and a worn, sad expression, the face bore the trace of uncommon
beauty, though all youth and freshness, animation and coloring, had
faded out of it.

The profile was almost perfect, and the mouth would have been lovely
too but for a certain proud droop of the lips which gave an impression
of hardness and inflexibility; but the dark eyes were very soft and
melancholy, and seemed to hold a world of sadness in their depths.

"Mrs. Watkins," she began hurriedly, in a sweet, cultivated voice, and
then stopped and drew back as another person came into the shop; "no,
do not let me interrupt you. I was only going to say that one of the
young ladies at Miss Martingale's seems very poorly, and Miss Theresa
is a little troubled about her, so I have promised to go back for an
hour or two; but I have my key with me if I should be late."

"Dear bless my heart, Mrs. Trafford," exclaimed Mrs. Watkins, fussily,
as she looked at her lodger's pale, tired face, "you are never going
out on such an evening, and all the streets swept as clean as if with
a new broom; and you with your cough, and the fog, and not to mention
the rawness which sucks into your chest like a lozenge;" and here Mrs.
Watkins shook her head, and weighed out a quarter of a pound of mixed
tea, in a disapproving manner.

Mrs. Trafford smiled. "My good friend," she said, in rather an amused
voice, "you ought to know me better by this time; have you ever
remembered that either frost, or rain, or fog have kept me in-doors a
single day when duty called me out;" and here she folded her cloak
round her, and prepared to leave the shop.

"It's ill tempting Providence, neighbor," remarked the other woman,
who had been standing silently by and now put in her word, for she was
an innocent country body with a garrulous tongue; "it's ill tempting
Providence, for 'the wind and the sea obey Him.' I had a son myself
some fourteen years next Michaelmas," continued the simple creature,
"as brave and bonny a lad as ever blessed a mother's eyes, and that
feared naught; but the snow-drift that swept over the Cumberland Fells
found him stumbling and wandering, poor Willie, from the right way,
and froze his dear heart dead."

The lady advanced a few steps, and then stopped as though seized by a
sudden impulse, and looked wistfully in the other woman's face.

"God help you," she said, very softly; "and was this boy of yours a
good son