oward Nettie was that of authority with a note of disapprobation.

"Speak, girl, and do it without giggling. What 'ave you to tell?"

Though she couldn't do it without giggling Nettie repeated the story
she had given to her aunt and Jane. She had gone into the small single
back bedroom on the floor below Mr. Allerton's, and there was a
half-dressed girl 'a-puttin' up of 'er 'air.' According to her own
statement Nettie had passed away on the spot, being able, however, to
articulate the question, "What are you a'doin' of 'ere?" To this the
young woman had replied that Mr. Allerton had brought her in on the
previous evening, telling her to sleep there, and there she had slept.
Nettie's information could go no further, but it was considered to go
far enough.

"So what do you sye to _that_?" Mrs. Courage demanded of Steptoe; "you
that's always so ready to defend my young lord?"

Steptoe was prepared to stand back to back with his employer. "I don't
defend 'im. I'm not called on to defend 'im. It's Mr. Rashleigh's
'ouse. Any guest of 'is must be your guest and mine."

"And what about Miss Walbrook, 'er that's to be missus 'ere in the
course of a few weeks?"

Steptoe colored, frostily. "She's not missus 'ere yet; and if she ever
comes, there'll be stormy weather for all of us. New missuses don't
generally get on with old servants like us--that's been in the family
for so many years--but when they don't, it ain't them as gets
notice."

A bell rang sharply. Steptoe sprang to attention.

"There's Mr. Rashleigh now. Don't you women go to mykin' a to-do.
There's lots o' troubles that 'ud never 'ave 'appened if women 'ad
been able to 'old their tongues."

"But I suppose, Steptoe, you don't deny that there's such a thing as
right."

"I don't deny that there's such a thing as right, Mrs. Courage, but I
only wonder if you knows more about it than the rest of us."

In Allerton's room Steptoe found the young master of the house half
dressed. Standing before a mirror, he was brushing his hair. His face
and eyes, the reflection of which Steptoe caught in the glass, were
like those of a man on the edge of going insane.

The old valet entered according to his daily habit and without
betraying the knowledge of anything unusual. All the same his heart
was sinking, as old hearts sink when beloved young ones are in
trouble. The boy was his darling. He had been with his father for ten
years before the lad was born, and had watched