dear to her as her first charge, Rosalind, they were still her children, Trevanions, quite separated in her mind from the idea of their mother. Perhaps the influence of Russell accounted for certain small griefs which Madam had to bear as one of the consequences of her constant attendance on her husband, the indifference to her of her little children in their earlier years. But she said to herself with a wonderful philosophy that she could expect no less; that absorbed as she was in her husband’s sick-room all day, it was not to be expected that the chance moments she could give to the nursery would secure the easily diverted regard of the babies, to whom their nurse was the principal figure in earth and heaven. And that nurse was so good, so careful, so devoted, that it would have been selfishness indeed to have deprived the children of her care because of a personal grievance of this kind. “Why should Russell dislike me so much?” she would say sometimes to Rosalind, who tried to deny the charge, and Jane, who shook her head and could not explain. “Oh, dear mamma, it is only her temper. She does not mean it,” Rosalind would say. And Madam, who had so much to suffer from temper in another quarter, did not reject the explanation. “Temper explains a great many things,” she said, “but even that does not quite explain. She is so good to the children and hates their mother. I feel I have a foe in the house so long as she is here.” Rosalind had a certain love for her nurse, notwithstanding her disapproval of her, and she looked up with some alarm. “Do you mean to send her away?” “Miss Rosalind,” said Jane, “my lady is right. It is a foe and nothing less, a real enemy she has in that woman; if she would send Russell away I’d be very glad for one.” “You need not fear, my love,” Madam said. “Hush, Jane, if she is my foe, you are my partisan. I will never send Russell away, Rosalind; but when the children are grown up, if I live to see it, or if she would be so kind as to marry, and go off in a happy way, or even if when _you_ are married she preferred to go with you-- I think I should draw my breath more freely. It is painful to be under a hostile eye.” “The nurse’s eye, mamma, and you the mistress of the house!”