"I don't despise it," returned Mildred, wishing he would be said, and take himself away. "But I cannot accept it." "Well, what is it, then? Do you intend never to marry?" The question called up bitter remembrances, and a burning red suffused her cheeks. "I shall never marry, Mr. Carr. At least, such is my belief now. Certainly I shall not marry until I have tried whether I cannot be happy in my life of dependence at Lady Dewsbury's." Mr. John Carr's lucky star appeared not to be in the ascendant that day, and he went out considerably crest-fallen. Whipping his horses, he proceeded up the town to pay a visit to his uncle, Mr. Marmaduke Carr. None, save himself, knew how covetous were the eyes he cast to the good fortune his uncle had to bequeath to somebody; or that he would cast so long as the bequeathal remained in abeyance. Lady Dewsbury lived in the heart of the fashionable part of London. Mildred went up alone. Mrs. Arkell had made a hundred words over it; but Mildred stood out for her independence: if she were not fit to take care of herself on a journey to London by day, she urged, how should she be fit to enter on the life she had carved out for herself? She found no trouble. Mr. Arkell had given instructions to the guard, and he called a coach for her at the journey's end. One of Mildred's great surprises on entering Lady Dewsbury's house was, to find that lady young. As the widow of the colonel's eldest brother--and the colonel himself was past middle age--Mildred had pictured in her mind a woman of at least fifty. Lady Dewsbury, however, did not look more than thirty, and Mildred was puzzled, for she knew there was a grown-up son, Sir Edward. Lady Dewsbury was a plain woman, with a sickly look, and teeth that projected very much; but the expression of her face was homely and kindly, and Mildred liked her at the first glance. She was leaning back in an invalid chair; a peculiar sort of chair, the like of which Mildred had never seen, and a maid stood before her holding a cup of tea. Mildred found afterwards that Lady Dewsbury suffered from an internal complaint; nothing dangerous in itself, but tedious, and often painful. It caused her to live completely the life of an invalid; going out very little, and receiving few visitors. The medical men said if she could live over the next ten years or so, she might recover, and be afterwards a strong woman. Nothing could be more kind and cordial than her reception of Mildred. She received her more as an equal than an attendant. It relieved Mildred excessively. Reared in her simple country home, a Lady Dewsbury, or Lady anybody else, was a formidable personage to Mildred; one of the high-born and unapproachable of the land. It must be confessed that Mildred was at first as timid as ever poor humble Betsey Travice could have been; and nearly broke down as she ventured on a word of hope that "My lady," "her ladyship," would find her equal to her duties.