"Can you give me a card? your name, perhaps, will do, if you have not a card. I say, Simmons" (to a lady's-maid crossing the hall), "is the judge up yet?" "Oh, yes! he's in his dressing-room this half-hour. My lady is coming down directly. It is just breakfast-time." "Can't you put it off and come again, a little later?" said he, turning once more to Ellinor--white Ellinor! trembling Ellinor! "No! please let me come in. I will wait. I am sure Judge Corbet will see me, if you will tell him I am here. Miss Wilkins. He will know the name." "Well, then; will you wait here till I have got breakfast in?" said the man, letting her into the hall, and pointing to the bench there, he took her, from her dress, to be a lady's-maid or governess, or at most a tradesman's daughter; and, besides, he was behindhand with all his preparations. She came in and sat down. "You will tell him I am here," she said faintly. "Oh, yes, never fear: I'll send up word, though I don't believe he'll come to you before breakfast." He told a page, who ran upstairs, and, knocking at the judge's door, said that a Miss Jenkins wanted to speak to him. "Who?" asked the judge from the inside. "Miss Jenkins. She said you would know the name, sir." "Not I. Tell her to wait." So Ellinor waited. Presently down the stairs, with slow deliberate dignity, came the handsome Lady Corbet, in her rustling silks and ample petticoats, carrying her fine boy, and followed by her majestic nurse. She was ill-pleased that any one should come and take up her husband's time when he was at home, and supposed to be enjoying domestic leisure; and her imperious, inconsiderate nature did not prompt her to any civility towards the gentle creature sitting down, weary and heart-sick, in her house. On the contrary, she looked her over as she slowly descended, till Ellinor shrank abashed from the steady gaze of the large black eyes. Then she, her baby and nurse, disappeared into the large dining-room, into which all the preparations for breakfast had been carried. The next person to come down would be the judge. Ellinor instinctively put down her veil. She heard his quick decided step; she had known it well of old. He gave one of his sharp, shrewd glances at the person sitting in the hall and waiting to speak to him, and his practised eye recognised the lady at once, in spite of her travel-worn dress. "Will you just come into this room?" said he, opening the door of his study, to the front of the house: the dining-room was to the back; they communicated by folding-doors. The astute lawyer placed himself with his back to the window; it was the natural position of the master of the apartment; but it also gave him the advantage of seeing his companion's face in full light. Ellinor lifted her veil; it had only been a dislike to a recognition in the hall which had made her put it down.