"I have come to offer myself for the appointment," said the visitor, handing her card, which Hill dropped on the table without looking at. "I flatter myself I shall be found eligible." Hill looked surprised, and I felt so. Only a candidate for the vacant place?—after all that circumlocution! "Why could you not have said at first what you wanted?" was Hill's next question, put with scant politeness. Indeed, she seemed to resent both the visit and the application as a personal affront. "I don't think you'll suit, madam." "Why do you think I shall not?" "And we are about somebody already. Mr. Chandos is gone to inquire for her now." A flush, and a shade of disappointment, immediately hid under a smile, appeared on the lady's face. I felt sorry for her. I thought perhaps she might be wanting a home. "Mr. Chandos may not engage her," observed the visitor. "That's true enough," acknowledged Hill. "Yet she would have suited well; for she is not a stranger to the Chandos family." "Neither am I," quietly replied the applicant. "My name is Penn—if you will have the goodness to look at the card—Mrs. Penn." "Penn? Penn?" repeated Hill, revolving the information, but paying no attention to the suggestion. "I don't recognise the name. I remember nobody bearing it who is known to us." "Neither would Lady Chandos recognise it, for personally I am unknown to her. When I said I was no stranger to the Chandos family, I meant that I was not strange to certain unpleasant events connected with it. That dreadful misfortune——" "It's not a thing to be talked of in the light of day," shrieked Hill; putting up her hands to stop the words. "Have you not more discretion than that? Very fit, you'd be, as companion to young Mrs. Chandos!" "Do not alarm yourself for nothing," rejoined Mrs. Penn, with soothing coolness. "I was not going to talk of it, beyond the barest allusion: and the whole world knows that the Chandos family are not as others. I would only observe that I am acquainted with everything that occurred; all the details; and therefore I should be more eligible than some to reside at Chandos." "How did you learn them?" asked Hill. "Lady Chandos had once an intimate friend—Mrs. Sackville; who is now dead. I was at Mrs. Sackville's when the affair happened, and become cognizant of all through her. Perhaps Lady Chandos may deem it worth while to see me, if you tell her this." "How can she see you, when she's confined to her bed?" irritably responded Hill, who appeared fully bent upon admitting none to the presence of Lady Chandos. The very mention of it excited her anger in a most unreasonable manner, for which I could see no occasion whatever.