“Is this the truth?” Mrs Asquith said; “is this _all_ the truth?” “It is everything,” cried the young man; “there is nothing more to tell you, but there is more for me to do. I give up this charge, Mrs. Mills. I will do it no more, it is against my conscience. If he only knew a little better he could bring us both up for conspiracy. I will clear my conscience of it this very day.” “If you are such a fool!” the housekeeper said in her excitement. She went round to him and caught him by the arm, and led him aside, talking eagerly. “_She’ll_ pay no attention. What does she care for anything but her girl?” the woman said. Mary had seated herself again suddenly, her brain swimming, her heart beating. Thank God! she said to herself. She did not know what she had feared, but something more dreadful, worse than this; her relief was greater than words could say. She sat down to recover herself. What the housekeeper said was true. She cared for nothing but her girl. What were their secrets to her? If somebody was wronged Mary did not feel that it was her business to set it right. It was her child or whom, and of whom alone, she was thinking; and in all probability no further thoughts of the mysterious invalid would have crossed her mind, but for this incident which now occurred, and which for the moment was nothing but an annoyance to her, detaining her from Hetty. There was a knock at the door, to which the others in their preoccupation paid no attention. After a second knock the door was softly opened, and one of the women servants came in, a tidy person, in the dark gown and white cap and apron, which is a respectable maid-servant’s livery. She hesitated for a moment, and then said, “Oh, please, is Mrs. Asquith here?” “Yes, I am here,” cried Mary, quickly getting up, with the idea that she was being called to Hetty. The woman came in, hurried forward, and made curtsey after curtsey--a little sniff of suppressed crying attending each--“Oh, ma’am, don’t you know me? Oh, ma’am, I’ve never forgotten you! Oh, please, I am Bessie Brown,” she said. “Are you indeed Bessie Brown? I am very glad to see you,” said Mrs. Asquith. “And are you here in service? And how is it I never heard about you from my Hetty? You were the first nurse she ever had.” “Oh, ma’am, is that our baby? and me never to know! I never heard her name right. I never knew. Oh, to think that poor young lady is our baby! And the dreadful, dreadful fright she got! But oh! ma’am, perhaps now you’ve come it is all for the best.” “How can it be for the best that my child should be so ill?” said Mary. “Oh, she is so ill! To see her is enough to break one’s heart.” And in the softness of this sympathy, the first touch of the old naturalness and familiarity which she had yet felt, Mary too began to cry in the fulness of her heart. “The house is dreadful changed, ma’am, and everything going wrong, I think, though it mayn’t be a servant’s place to speak.”