"My mother spent years of weary labour that she might never go amongst these people. With all her love for me, she thought it better that I, too, should work for my living, and run the chances of illness, rather than go amongst them; and am I to make friends with them now? Their condescension is great; but when a woman has lived the life that I have; she begins to mistrust people who want to be friends with you only when you become fortunate. And why do they want to be friends with me? They will take me into society?—I don’t wish to go. They will offer me their wives and sisters as companions?—I prefer other companions. I would rather walk out of this house a beggar to-morrow morning, than pretend to be friends with people _whom I hate_!" "Your ladyship is unjust," said Mr. Cayley. "These gentlemen tried to induce your mother to return to England, and accept that effort at compensation which Lord Knottingley made when it was too late. Nor could they show any interest in your welfare before now without revealing that secret which your mother had imposed on us all. As well blame me for not seeking you out before you came to our office. We all of us knew who you were; we were bound to let you make the first overtures yourself." "Compensation? You imagine that a woman who had her heart broken should have accepted that tardy acknowledgment of her rights as a sufficient compensation?" "It was all Lord Knottingley could then offer," said the lawyer, who stuck manfully to the clear outlines of the case as they lay mapped out in his brain, without regard to the distortion produced by the generous impulses of love, and pity, and indignation. These disturbant influences, in the present case, he could not well understand; for he failed to comprehend the powerful caste-hatred which the girl had sucked in with her mother’s milk—a bitter and illogical prejudice, which neither the tenderness of her own nature, nor the provoked arguments of Will, nor the wise counsel and example of Mr. Anerley, had in any way tempered. Shortly afterwards, they went on a tour of inspection through the house, accompanied by Mrs. Tillotson, a tall, thin-faced, dark woman, with placid melancholy eyes and a soft voice. The first question asked of the housekeeper by her new mistress was whether she remembered Lord Knottingley’s wife. But neither Mrs. Tillotson, nor any one of the servants, had been with Lord Knottingley at that time. "Except Brooks, my lady, perhaps; he has been with the family since he was a boy. "Who is Brooks?" "The lodge-keeper. Perhaps your ladyship didn’t see him at the gate, for he is old, and seldom moves out-of-doors. But surely on such a day as this——" "I saw some children——" "They are his grandchildren—John Brooks’s children. They all live in the lodge. But he is sure to present himself during the day; and I hope your ladyship won’t be offended by his—his manner—his bluntness of speaking——"