windows stood a large aquarium,
full of water-plants and fishes. At the table were seated seven little
girls, of ages from eight to thirteen, all poorly clad, yet all looking
remarkably joyous, and eating with much evidence of appetite. At the
head of the table was a woman of middle age and motherly aspect--Mrs.
Mapper. She had the superintendence of the convalescents whom the lady
of the house received and sent back to their homes in London better
physically and morally than they had ever been in their lives before.
The children did not notice that Mrs. Ormonde and her companion had
entered; they were chatting gaily over their meal. Now and then one of
them drew a gentle word of correction from Mrs. Mapper, but on the
whole they needed no rebuke. Those who had been longest in the house
speedily instructed new arrivals in the behaviour they had learned to
deem becoming. A girl waited at table. On that subject Mrs. Ormonde had
amusing stories to relate; how more than one servant had regretfully
but firmly declined to wait upon little ragamuffins (female, too), and
how one in particular had explained that she made no objection to doing
it only because she regarded it as a religious penance.

Egremont had his pleasure in regarding her face, nobly beautiful as she
moved her eyes from one to another of her poor little pensioners. She
had said at first that it would be impossible ever again to live in
this house, when she quitted it for a time after her husband's death.
How could she pass through the barren rooms, how dwell within sight and
sound of the treacherous waves which had taken her dearest? It was a
royal thought which converted the sad dwelling into a home for those
whose reawakening laughter would chide despondency from beneath the
roof; whose happiness would ease the heavy heart and make memory a
sacred solace. She had her abounding reward, and such as only the
greatly loving may attain to.

They withdrew without having excited attention; Mrs. Mapper saw them,
but Mrs. Ormonde made sign to her to say nothing.

'Two are upstairs, I'm sorry to say,' she remarked as they went back to
the drawing-room. 'They have obstinate colds; I keep them under the
bed-clothes. The difficulty these poor things have in getting rid of a
cold! With many of them I believe such a condition is chronic; it goes
on, I suppose, until they die of it.'

They talked together till luncheon time. Egremont led the conversation
back to Ullswat