Lucy and Janet, the respective maids of the two young ladies, held many a whispered colloquy over Colonel Carlyle's defection. Janet indeed was an object of sympathy in those days, for she had to bear the brunt of Felise's anger, which was no slight thing to endure. Indeed, it is probable that the much-enduring maid would have given warning on the spot had it not been for an _affaire du cœur_ which she was carrying out with the footman. Rather than be separated from this object of her fond affections Janet remained in Felise's service and endured her caprices and ill-treatment with that heroic fortitude with which women from time immemorial have borne slight and wrong for love's sake. "Will Miss Bonnibel marry him, do you think, Lucy?" asked Janet at one of their solemn conclaves. "I don't know," Lucy answered. "Seems to me the child don't have the least idea of what is going on right afore her eyes. I don't believe she knows that the colonel is a courtin' her! She thinks he is a friend, like, and because he knew her father in the army and talks a good deal about his bravery, she listens to him and never dreams that she has cut Miss Felise out right afore her face." "And serves her right, too," said Janet, heartily, taking a malicious pleasure in the defeat of her over-bearing mistress; "I, for one, am downright glad that she has cut my lady out of her rich beau! It would be a fine match for Miss Bonnibel since her uncle has left her without a cent." "I hope she will marry him," said Lucy. "Things isn't going at all to my notion in this house, Janet. Sour looks and impident words is flung around altogether too free in my young lady's hearing. And she getting that shabby that she have got but one decent mourning gown to her back, and I hear nothing said of a new one! As for money I don't believe Mrs. Arnold has given her a single penny since her uncle died; I've seen her little purse and it's quite empty. I'd have put a few of my own savings into it, only I was afraid she might be angry." "I hope she'll marry Carlyle and queen it over them both," said Janet. "I tell you, Lucy, it was very strange that Mr. Arnold's _will_ wasn't found. I am quite sure he made one--he wouldn't have slighted your young lady intentionally. He loved that pretty little blue-eyed girl as the apple of his eye, and there was small love lost between him and t'other one. 'Twas mysterious the way things turned out at his death, Lucy." "Aye, it were," assented Lucy; "I heard Miss Bonnibel, myself, tell Mrs. Arnold down at Sea View when she were sick, that her uncle told her he had made a will and provided liberally for her. And Mrs. Arnold laughed at her and pretended that the fever hadn't got out of her head yet. _She_ didn't want to believe there was a will, Janet, _she_ didn't! Now I ask you, Janet, what has become of that there will?" Janet laughed scornfully and significantly.