ve adjunct, had made some calculation that the more her
daughter was made to feel the luxuries of aristocratic life, the less
prone would she be to adapt herself to the roughnesses of Daniel
Thwaite the tailor.

The Countess put her daughter into the mail-coach, and gave her much
parting advice. "Hold up your head when you are with them. That is
all that you have to do. Among them all your blood will be the best."
This theory of blood was one of which Lady Anna had never been able
even to realise the meaning. "And remember this too;--that you are in
truth the most wealthy. It is they that should honour you. Of course
you will be courteous and gentle with them,--it is your nature; but
do not for a moment allow yourself to be conscious that you are their
inferior." Lady Anna,--who could think but little of her birth,--to
whom it had been throughout her life a thing plaguesome rather than
profitable,--could remember only what she had been in Cumberland,
and her binding obligation to the tailor's son. She could remember
but that and the unutterable sweetness of the young man who had once
appeared before her,--to whom she knew that she must be inferior.
"Hold up your head among them, and claim your own always," said the
Countess.

The rectory carriage was waiting for her at the inn yard in York, and
in it was Miss Lovel. When the hour had come it was thought better
that the wise woman of the family should go than any other. For the
ladies of Yoxham were quite as anxious as to the Lady Anna as was she
in respect of them. What sort of a girl was this that they were to
welcome among them as the Lady Anna,--who had lived all her life with
tailors, and with a mother of whom up to quite a late date they had
thought all manner of evil? The young lord had reported well of her,
saying that she was not only beautiful, but feminine, of soft modest
manners, and in all respects like a lady. The Earl, however, was but
a young man, likely to be taken by mere beauty; and it might be that
the girl had been clever enough to hoodwink him. So much evil had
been believed that a report stating that all was good could not be
accepted at once as true. Miss Lovel would be sure to find out, even
in the space of an hour's drive, and Miss Lovel went to meet her. She
did not leave the carriage, but sent the footman to help Lady Anna
Lovel from the coach. "My dear," said Miss Lovel, "I am very glad
to see you. Oh, you have brought a maid! We didn't thi