pened her eyes, and drank a little water, and sat up.
Janetta rose from her knees, and turned to the young man with a smile.
"She will soon be better now," she said. "I am afraid there is nothing
else that I can do--and I think I must go on."

"I am very much obliged to you for your kind assistance," said the
gentleman, but without any abatement of the gloom of his expression. He
gave Janetta a keen look--almost a bold look--Lady Caroline thought, and
then smiled a little, not very pleasantly. "Allow me to take you to your
carriage."

Janetta blushed, as if she were minded to say that it was not her
carriage; but returned to the victoria, and was handed to her seat by
the young man, who then raised his hat with an elaborate flourish which
was not exactly English. Indeed, it occurred to Lady Caroline at once
that there was something French about both the travelers. The lady with
the frizzled grey hair, the black lace dress and mantel, the gaudy blue
and scarlet fan, was quite foreign in appearance; the young man with the
perfectly fitting frock-coat, the tall hat, the flower in his
button-hole, was--in spite of his perfectly English accent--foreign too.
Lady Caroline was cosmopolitan enough to feel an access of greater
interest in the pair in consequence.

"They have sent to the nearest inn for a horse," said Janetta, as the
carriage moved on; "and I dare say they will not have long to wait."

"Was the lady hurt?"

"No, only shaken. She is subject to fainting fits, and the accident
quite upset her nerves, her son said."

"Her son?"

"The gentleman called her mother."

"Oh! You did not hear their name, I suppose?"

"No. There was a big B on their traveling bag."

"B--B--?" said Lady Caroline, thoughtfully. "I don't know any one in
this neighborhood whose name begins with B, except the Bevans. They must
have been merely passing through; and yet the young man's face seemed
familiar to me."

Janetta shook her head. "I never saw them before," she said.

"He has a very bold and unpleasant expression," Lady Caroline remarked,
decidedly. "It spoils him entirely: otherwise he is a handsome man."

The girl made no answer. She knew, as well as Lady Caroline, that she
had been stared at in a manner that was not quite agreeable to her, and
yet she did not like to endorse that lady's condemnation of the
stranger. For he was certainly very nice-looking--and he had been so
kind to his mother that he could not be entirely