laid a hand upon the girl's shoulder, and,
turning her face gently to the light, gazed upon it with tender
scrutiny. Then she said, talking to herself:

"It is her face! It is her face!"

"And you are Daniel Yates' mother. How I shall love you! Oh, how I loved
him!"

Then the old woman's face began to quiver, and her large gray eyes
filled with the slow tears old age gives out with such pain.

"Yes, child, you must love me a little for your mother's sake."

"And for the sake of that good man, your son, who was a father to me.
How often he has told me that, if there was anything grand or good in
him, it came from the best mother that ever lived! 'Some day,' he once
said, 'God may be merciful and let you know her. Then remember that she
has nothing left but you.' I do remember it, and no child ever loved a
grandmother better than I will love you."

The old woman lifted up her head from the gentle embrace thus offered
her, and turned to her dead mistress.

A smile, soft as that hovering about that cold mouth, came to her lips
and eyes.

"God is very good to me. Are the angels telling you of it, my old
mistress, that you smile so?"

CHAPTER XXXVII.

THE NEMESIS.

The last tender words were still lingering on the lips of Mrs. Yates,
when the door opened and Lady Hope stood upon the threshold.

She had become restless beyond self-control in her own room, and came
back to the death-chamber, wondering what detained her husband there so
long. She had thrown the lace shawl from her head entirely; but it fell
around her shoulders, shading her bare white arms and beautiful neck,
which the amber-hued dress would otherwise have left uncovered. Framed
in the doorway she made an imperial picture.

"My lord," she said, advancing to her husband, "what detains you here so
long?"

Old Mrs. Yates stepped forward with a scared, wild look; a gleam of
anger or fear, bright as fire, and fierce as a martyr's faith, shot into
her eyes and broadened there. She came close to Lady Hope, facing her,
and laid one hand heavily on her arm.

The haughty woman drew back, and would have shaken the hand from her
arm, but it clung there with a grip of steel.

"Lord Hope, is this woman your wife?"

"His wife! Yes, old woman, I am his wife," cried Rachael, pale with
indignation; "but who authorized you to ask?"

The old woman did not heed her scornfulness, but turned her eyes upon
Lord Hope, whose face was already white with va