t, as if deserted by every living thing.

The old driver gave a hearty pull at the bell, and the muffled clamour
reached me where I stood. I was quaking with fears and apprehensions of
that unknown future on whose threshold I was standing. Would Love or
Hate open for me the doors of Deepley Walls? I was strung to such a
pitch that it seemed impossible for any lesser passion to be handmaiden
to my needs.

What I saw when the massive door was opened was an aged woman, dressed
like a superior domestic, who, in sharp accents, demanded to know what
we meant by disturbing a quiet family in that unseemly way. She was
holding one hand over her eyes, and trying to make out our appearance
through the gathering darkness. I stepped close up to her. "I am Miss
Janet Hope, from Park Hill Seminary," I said, "and I wish to speak with
Lady Chillington."

CHAPTER II.

THE MISTRESS OF DEEPLEY WALLS.

The words were hardly out of my lips when the woman shrank suddenly
back, as though struck by an invisible hand, and gave utterance to an
inarticulate cry of wonder and alarm. Then, striding forward, she seized
me by the wrist, and drew me into the lamp-lighted hall. "Child! child!
why have you come here?" she cried, scanning my face with eager eyes.
"In all the wide world this is the last place you should have come to."

"Miss Chinfeather is dead, and all the young ladies have been sent to
their homes. I have no home, so they have sent me here."

"What shall I do? What will her ladyship say?" cried the woman, in a
frightened voice. "How shall I ever dare to tell her?"

"Who rang the bell, Dance, a few minutes ago? And to whom are you
talking?"

The voice sounded so suddenly out of the semi-darkness at the upper end
of the large hall, which was lighted only by a small oil lamp, that both
the woman and I started. Looking in the direction from which the sound
had come, I could dimly make out, through the obscurity, the figures of
two women who had entered without noise through the curtained doorway,
close to which they were now standing. One of the two was very tall, and
was dressed entirely in black. The second one, who was less tall, was
also dressed in black, except that she seemed to have something white
thrown over her head and shoulders; but I was too far away to make out
any details.

"Hush! don't you speak," whispered the woman warningly to me. "Leave me
to break the news to her ladyship." With that, she left me stan