“Here you will sit, madam, with the young ladies,” said Mrs. Aylward. “They have a maid-servant who will wait on you, and if you require anything, you will be pleased to speak to me. My Lady wishes you to take charge of them, and likewise to execute the piece of embroidery you will find in that frame, with the materials. This will be your apartment, and you can take the young ladies into the garden and park, wherever you please, except that they must not make a noise before the windows of the other wing, which you will see closed with shutters, for those are Mr. Belamour’s rooms.” With these words Mrs. Aylward curtsied as if about to retire, Aurelia held out her hand in entreaty. “Oh, cannot you stay with me?” “No, madam, my office is the housekeeper’s,” was the stiff response. “Molly will call me if you require my services. I think you said you preferred bread and milk for breakfast. Dinner will be served at one.” Mrs. Aylward retreated, leaving a chill on the heart of the lonely girl. She was a clergyman’s widow, though with no pretensions to gentility, and was a plain, conscientious, godly woman, but with the narrow self-concentrated piety of the time, which seemed to ignore all the active part of the duty to our neighbour. She had lived many years as a faithful retainer to the Belamour family, and avoided perplexity by minding no one’s business but her own, and that thoroughly. Naturally reserved, and disapproving much that she saw around her, she had never held it to be needful to do more than preserve her own integrity, and the interests of her employers, and she made it a principle to be in no wise concerned in family affairs, and to hold aloof from perilous confidences. Thus Aurelia was left to herself, till three bowls of milk were borne in by Molly, who was by no means loth to speak. “The little misses will be down directly, ma’am,” she said, “that is, two on ‘em. The little one, she won’t leave Jenny Bowles, but Dame Wheatfield, she’ll bring down the other two. You see, ma’am, they be only just taken home from being out at nurse, and don’t know one another, nor the place, and a pretty handful we shall have of ‘em.” Here came a call for Molly, and the girl with a petulant exclamation, sped away, leaving Aurelia to the society of the tapestry. It was of that set of Gobelin work which represents the four elements personified by their goddesses, and Aurelia’s mythology, founded on Fenelon, was just sufficient to enable her to recognise the forge of Vulcan and the car [chariot--D.L.] of Venus. Then she looked at the work prepared for her, a creamy piece of white satin, and a most elaborate pattern of knots of roses, lilacs, hyacinths, and laburnums, at which her heart sank within her. However, at that moment the stout woman she had seen in the morning appeared at the open door with a little girl in each hand, both in little round muslin caps, long white frocks, and blue sashes.