“So they are,” said Mrs. Eastwood, shaking her head. She was fond of pretty paper and pretty chintz, and of change and novelty. She liked furnishing a room almost as well as her daughter did, and she thought she had “taste.” Therefore she had defences against any attack on that side of the question, which Ellinor had not dreamt of. However, even Nelly was startled and taken aback by the unexpected line taken by Alice, who looked as if she might have something very important to say. “You remember Miss Isabel, mem?” was what she said, looking her mistress full in the face. “Dear me, Alice, what a question! Remember my sister?” cried Mrs. Eastwood, turning abruptly away from the paper and chintz. “It’s a queer question to ask,” said Alice, with a grim smile; “but dinna go too fast. You mind your sister, and yet you are going to put her child--her only child--here in a room next to your own, next to Miss Ellinor’s? Between mother and daughter? That’s where you place Miss Isabel’s bairn?” “Alice!” cried Mrs. Eastwood, almost angrily. She looked at Nelly’s wondering face and then at her maid with a half-frightened, half-threatening gesture. She was annoyed, but she was startled too. “I say it before Miss Ellinor that you may not do it with your eyes shut,” said Alice. “I’m only a servant, with no right to interfere; but I cannot stand by, and no say a word. I’m no in favour of it,” she cried, turning round. “It would be best to provide for her, and no bring her home; but if you will bring her home--and, mem, you are always wilful, though nobody thinks so--put her in any place but here.” “You are dreadfully prejudiced, Alice--dreadfully prejudiced!” “Maybe I am; and, mem, you like your own way. We are none of us perfect. But your sister Isabel’s bairn, the child of an ill father to the boot, should never come into my house. Maybe you think, mem, that the features of the mind are no transmitted? Poor leddy! Poor leddy! There’s enough of her in your blood already without searching out of your way to find more.” Mrs. Eastwood grew crimson to her hair. “If you think any of my children resemble my sister, Alice, I can assure you you are very much mistaken,” she said, walking up and down the little room in her agitation. “Nelly, look here, you would think she meant something very dreadful. Your poor aunt Isabella was very secret in her way, and liked to make a mystery. She got me into some trouble when I was a girl through it. That was all. Why it should be remembered against her child, or change my natural affections, I can’t imagine. Oh, I know you mean well, Alice, you mean well; but that does not make it a bit more pleasant. Put down those curtains and things, Nelly, put them down. I hate so much fuss. There is plenty of time. You are always so hasty and premature in everything. I am going to speak to cook. Don’t trouble me about this any more.” “It is all your doing, Alice,” said Ellinor, as her mother went away. CHAPTER IV.