oung ladies will put up with it
is more than Martha and me can imagine! My home is in the country, so
I don't mind it. I never could abear London with its fog and dirt.
Mrs. Tucker has been telling me and Martha queer tales about the
gentleman who lived here.'

Clare wrapped herself in her dressing-gown and sat down by the fire.
She rarely checked Jane's flow of talk, and perhaps that was why the
maid liked her.

'What kind of tales?'

'Mrs. Tucker says he ought to have the property here called The Park,
for he is the eldest son, and his younger brother, Major Lester, has
taken it all, for Mr. Tom Lester offended his father by marrying a
foreign lady, and he struck him out of his will. Mrs. Tucker says she
believes the quarrel last autumn was about Major Lester's son, who is
missing somewhere abroad, and who Mr. Tom Lester hates. And did you
hear about the cupboard downstairs? Mrs. Tucker says she never has
been inside it herself, for Mr. Lester only used to open it late at
night, and he's gone away and taken the key with him, and says it isn't
to be touched. I says to Mrs. Tucker that there might be anything in
the cupboard, and Martha says she's afraid to go near it, for you do
hear such dreadful tales about locked cupboards, and skeletons inside
them, don't you, miss?'

'Only in your penny novelettes, that do you more harm than good, Jane!'
said Clare a little shortly. I think if Mrs. Tucker is such a gossip,
we shan't care to have her about the house. Where does she live now?'

'She's going to stay with her married sister in Brambleton, miss, and
she's going out cooking if she can. I says to Martha that her tongue
runned away with her, we could hardly get in a word, she talks so; but
she's a very good-natured person, and has given Martha and me a lot of
information about the neighbourhood.'

Clare did not respond, but soon dismissed Jane, and then sat for some
time in dreams before her fire. At last with a little sigh she took
hold of her Bible, to have her usual evening reading out of it. She
turned to Nannie's Psalm, and listlessly scanned the verse that had
been given her.

'Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for Him.'

'Rest!' she mused; 'it is the one thing I never have really
experienced. I always seem to be wishing for, and wanting, what never
comes to me. I don't suppose any but a very old person who has lived
her life, and has no hopes left, can rest and wait patiently. I don't
k