The two women, the lady and the servant, exchanged looks. Both were acute persons, and the judgment either passed on the other was keen and accurate. Probably neither judged herself, or recognized the true root of her judgment upon the third person, unfortunate Christian. "She has interfered with my management, and stolen the hearts of my children;" "she has annoyed me and resisted my authority?" would never have been given by either nurse or aunt as a reason for either their feelings or their actions; yet so it was. Nevertheless, when in the hall of the Lodge they came suddenly face to face with Mrs. Grey, entering, hat in hand, from the door of the private garden, the only place where she ever walked alone now, they both started as if they had been detected in something wrong. She looked so quiet and gentle, grave and sweet, modest as a girl and dignified as a young matron--so perfectly unconscious of all that was being said or planned against her, that if these two malicious women had a conscience--and they had, both of them--they must have felt it smite them now. "Miss Gascoigne, how kind of you to walk home with the children! Papa and I would have come, but he was obliged to dine in Hall. He will soon be free now, and will walk back with you. Pray come in and rest; you look tired." Mrs. Grey's words and manner, so perfectly guileless and natural, for the moment quite confounded her enemy--her enemy, and yet an honest enemy. Of the number of cruel things that are done in this world, how many are done absolutely for conscience sake by people who deceive themselves that they are acting from the noblest, purest motives--carrying out all the Christian virtues, in short, only they do so, not in themselves, but against other people. And from their list of commandments they obliterate one--"Judge not, that ye be not judged condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned." But, for the time being, Miss Gascoigne was puzzled. Her stern reproof, her patronizing pity, were alike disarmed. Her mountain seemed crumbling to its original mole-hill. The heap of accusing evidence which she had accumulated dwindled into the most ordinary and commonplace facts at sight of Christian's innocent face and placid mien. Nothing could be more unlike a woman who had ever contemplated the ordinary "flirting" of society. As for any thing worse, the idea was impossible to be entertained for a moment. It was simply ridiculous. Aunt Henrietta sat a good while talking, quite mildly for her, of ordinary topics, before she attempted to broach the real object of her visit. It was only as the hour neared for Dr. Grey's coming in that she nerved herself to her mission. She had an uneasy sense that it would be carried out better in his absence than in his presence. Without glancing often at Christian, who sat so peaceful, looking out into the fading twilight, she launched her thunderbolt at once. "We had a visit today from Sir Edwin Uniacke."