r away; and Iris was left to
suffer and to struggle alone.

Heartfelt aspirations for help and sympathy! Oh, irony of
circumstances, how were they answered? The housemaid entered the room,
to announce the arrival of a discharged servant, with a lost character.

"Let the young woman come in," Iris said. Was Fanny Mere the friend
whom she had been longing for? She looked at her troubled face in the
glass--and laughed bitterly.

CHAPTER XIV

THE LADY'S MAID

IT was not easy to form a positive opinion of the young woman who now
presented herself in Miss Henley's room.

If the Turkish taste is truly reported as valuing beauty in the female
figure more than beauty in the female face, Fanny Mere's personal
appearance might have found, in Constantinople, the approval which she
failed to receive in London. Slim and well balanced, firmly and neatly
made, she interested men who met her by accident (and sometimes even
women), if they happened to be walking behind her. When they quickened
their steps, and, passing on, looked back at her face, they lost all
interest in Fanny from that moment. Painters would have described the
defect in her face as "want of colour." She was one of the whitest of
fair female human beings. Light flaxen hair, faint blue eyes with no
expression in them, and a complexion which looked as if it had never
been stirred by a circulation of blood, produced an effect on her
fellow-creatures in general which made them insensible to the beauty of
her figure, and the grace of her movements. There was no betrayal of
bad health in her strange pallor: on the contrary, she suggested the
idea of rare physical strength. Her quietly respectful manner was, so
to say, emphasised by an underlying self-possession, which looked
capable of acting promptly and fearlessly in the critical emergencies
of life. Otherwise, the expression of character in her face was
essentially passive. Here was a steady, resolute young woman, possessed
of qualities which failed to show themselves on the surface--whether
good qualities or bad qualities experience alone could determine.

Finding it impossible, judging by a first impression, to arrive at any
immediate decision favourable or adverse to the stranger, Iris opened
the interview with her customary frankness; leaving the consequences to
follow as they might.

"Take a seat, Fanny," she said, "and let us try if we can understand
each other. I think you will agree with me that ther