mayhap, and better; and mony a squire, that ony leddy in the land might be proud to marry, and not one but would be glad to match wi' an Arden." "That is a happy thought," said Alice, laughing. "And so it is, and no laughing matter," said Martha, a little offended, as she stalked out of the room, and closed the door, grandly, after her. "And God bless you, dear old Martha," said the young lady, looking towards the door through which she had just passed; "the truest and kindest soul on earth." Sir Richard did not come back. She saw him no more that evening. CHAPTER LXXIII. AT THE BAR OF THE "GUY OF WARWICK." Next evening there came, not Richard, but a note saying that he would see Alice the moment he could get away from town. As the old servant departed northward, her solitude for the first time began to grow irksome, and as the night approached, worse even than gloomy. Her extemporised household made her laugh. It was not even a skeleton establishment. The kitchen department had dwindled to a single person, who ordered her luncheon and dinner, only two or three _plats_, daily, from the "Guy of Warwick." The housemaid's department was undertaken by a single servant, a short, strong woman of some sixty years of age. This person puzzled Alice a good deal. She came to her, like the others, with a note from her brother, stating her name, and that he had engaged her for the few days they meant to remain roughing it at Mortlake, and that he had received a very good account of her. This woman has not a bad countenance. There is, indeed, no tenderness in it; but there is a sort of hard good-humour. There are quickness and resolution. She talks fluently of herself and her qualifications, and now and then makes a short curtsey. But she takes no notice of any one of Alice's questions. A silence sometimes follows, during which Alice repeats her interrogatory perhaps twice, with growing indignation, and then the new comer breaks into a totally independent talk, and leaves the young lady wondering at her disciplined impertinence. It was not till her second visit that she enlightened her. "I did not send for you. You can go!" said Alice. "I don't like a house that has children in it, they gives a deal o' trouble," said the woman. "But I say you may go; you must go, please." The woman looked round the room. "When I was with Mrs. Montgomery, she had five, three girls and two boys; la! there never was five such----" "Go, this moment, please, I insist on your going; do you hear me, pray?" But so far from answering, or obeying, this cool intruder continues her harangue before Miss Arden gets half way to the end of her little speech.