My Lady moaned, and held her bands up as though she would say, “Forbear!” but Mistress Forest could not be stayed. “There was little enough clothes upon you, poor Lady, just a bodice and a petticoat, but round your neck there was hung a charm or two, and perhaps that had some hand in saying you from drowning.” My Lady looked quickly up; how strange it seemed that the comment passed by Mary Forest upon the locket (and the bundle of letters in their little waterproof case) should have been so exactly what Derrick had pointed out it would be. The coincidence reminded her of the task that lay before her, and of the danger of delaying it. “Yes, Mary, I indeed owe my life to you and yours, and I am not forgetful of the debt. Your welfare is, and ever will be only second in importance to that of my own children, and it is concerning it that I now wish to speak with you. Your future”---- “You owe me nothing, my dear Lady, that you have not paid again and again, I am sure,” interrupted the waiting-maid hurriedly. “When you rose to that high station, for which it seems to everybody you were born, your hand was always held out to me; through good report and evil report, you have ever stood my friend: it will be a great wrench of my heart, dearest mistress, when I leave your service--as I shall have to do, I fear, very soon.” “Mary!” “Yes, my Lady. You see I'm not a young girl now; and it is not everybody who has so good a chance as I have now of--of--settling in life. Service is not inheritance, you know, my Lady, although I am well aware I should never want for nothing”---- “Whether I live or die, Mary,” broke in her mistress eagerly, “I have taken care of that, good friend; and if I should die tomorrow---- But you shall see my will itself, for it lies here.”