Miss Kingscote made up her mind to retain Mrs. Barlowe as a companion, “for, Lud! I’ve growed fond of her.” Miss Kingscote told herself in a succession of reflections, “it would cost me summat to part with her. Besides, what would become of the wench herself, as is pure genteel and dandily, though she do have the smartest fingers, and the prettiest devices, if she were cast out into the world, may be to be driven back on the tender mercies of her villain of a man. I do have a spite at them men; except my Master Charles—he’s a good sort, as well as a pretty fellow, to make his sister’s heart glad, and other lasses’ hearts sad. But this lass she knows that she and Master Charles can’t at no price come together, since she’s neither a rank fool nor a base hussy, and he’s not an abandoned rakish rascal, God bless him! She’s a safe playfellow for Master Charles, as well as good company for me. “She’ll help me in the knotted fringes for the curtains of them beds. She has begun covers for the spare chairs, which ain’t half finished, and which I could no more complete all alone than I could dance a minnuee. I want a hand, too, in the sets out when the folks staying in the house step in to sup with Master Charles and me; and I am no great shakes at the preserving and pickling which summer do bring on heavy, since old nursey would never let me try, so long as she could have a finger in the pie. I can prank myself fine enough, but Master Charles he’s besotted with the last modes, and he lays into me to take Mrs. Barlowe’s word in the matter. Well, I’m not misdoubting that, wheresoever, and at whatsoever loss the poor thrown-away thing learnt it, she knows the fashions of the top company.” Thus Lady Bell lived on at Nutfield, and shared the agreeable stir which followed the first announcement of the season of lodgers to the house. “It’s the mayor’s wife have sent out a messenger express that the rooms are wanted for a Lon’on lady the mayor knows on (we only make our house free to friends and friends’ friends, Mrs. Barlowe), a young madam newly lain in with her first child, and seeking quiet and country air to recruit her,” was Miss Kingscote’s important tidings. “Our air is as sweet as a nut,” Miss Kingscote animadverted in her satisfaction, “as your colour may show. When you came first I could compare you to nought for wanness but the puling white July flower, and now you are getting that rosy you’ll soon match its red brother and sister.” Only one word of the news kept tingling in Lady Bell’s ears, “Lon’on!” Could this lady be high enough in rank to know any member of Lady Lucie’s old set? Might the stranger, after they had been several weeks together, be induced to favour and help Lady Bell, if she revealed her identity and appealed to the new-comer’s benevolence?