"Maid," said Mary, stolidly. "Ladies' maid. And Miss Lesley's the sweetest young lady I ever come across." Francis shrugged his shoulders. "Your employment is causing you to relapse into the manner--and grammar--of your original station, Mary. May I suggest 'came' instead of 'come'?" Mrs. Trent looked at him with a still disdain. "Suggest what you like," she said, "and think what you like of me. I never took myself to be your equal in education and all that. I may be your equal in sense and heart and morals; but of course that goes for nothing with such as you." "Don't be savage, Mary," said Francis, in a conciliatory tone. "I only want you to improve yourself a little, when you can. You're the best woman in the world--nobody knows it better than I do--and you should not take offense at a trifle. So you like Brooke's daughter, eh?" "Yes, I like her. But I don't like your brother Oliver." "I know that. What is he doing at Brooke's house? Let me see--he isn't engaged to _that_ girl? It's the actress he's going to marry, isn't it?" He had finished his meal by this time, and was smoking one of the cigars that his wife had brought him. She, meanwhile, turned up her sleeves, and made ready to wash the cups and plates. "Tell me all about it," said Francis, who was now in high good humor. "It sounds quite like the beginning of a romance." "There's no romance about it that I can see," said Mrs. Trent, grimly. "Your brother is engaged to Miss Kenyon--a nice, pretty young lady: rich, too, I hear." "Yes, indeed! As you and I are going to find out by and by, old lady," and he chuckled to himself at the thought of his prospective wealth. "And he ought to be content with that. Instead of which, he's never out of our place; and when he's there he never seems to take his eyes off Miss Lesley. Playing the piano while she sings, reading to her, whispering, sitting into her pocket, so to speak. I can't think what he's about, nor other people neither." "What does Miss Kenyon say?" asked Francis, with sudden sharpness. For it occurred to him that if that match were broken off he would not get his two thousand pounds on Oliver's wedding-day. "She doesn't seem to notice much. Once or twice lately I've seen her look at them in a thoughtful, puzzled kind of way, as if something had set her thinking. She looks at Miss Lesley as if she could not quite make her out--though the two have been friends ever since Miss Lesley came home from school." "And the girl herself?" said Francis, with considerable and increasing interest. "What does she do?" "She looks troubled and puzzled, but I don't think she understands. She's as innocent as a baby," said Mrs. Trent, with compassion in her tone. "I wonder what he's doing it for," soliloquized Francis. "He can't marry her." Mary Trent paused for a moment in her housewifely occupations. "Why _can_ he not?"