She vanished just as the house boy, or Buttons, as he was called, appeared with Lally’s box. He set this down near the door, and also departed. Left alone, Lally examined her new home with a faint thrill of interest. The floor was bare, with the exception of a strip of loose and threadbare carpet before the low brass bedstead. There was a chintz-covered couch, a chintz-covered easy-chair, a chest of drawers, and a green-shuttered blind at the single window. The room had a dreary aspect, but to Lally it was a haven of refuge. She locked her door and knelt down and prayed, thanking God that He had been so good to her as to give her a safe shelter and a home. Then, rising, she dressed herself as quickly as possible, putting on her black alpaca dress, a spotless linen collar and cuffs, a black sash, and a black ribbon in her hair. Thus attired, she descended the stairs, finding the way to the boudoir, at the door of which she knocked. Mrs. Blight’s languid voice bade her enter. She obeyed, finding her employer still reclining in an armed chair, looking as if she had not moved since Lally’s previous visit. She had a book in one hand, a paper cutter in the other. She recognized Lally with a sort of pleased surprise. “Ah, back again, and punctual!” she exclaimed, glancing at a toy clock in white and blue enamel on the low mantel-piece. “I had a great many misgivings after you went away, Miss Bird. Five pounds is a good deal of money to one in your position in life, and the world is _so_ full of swindlers. I have already written to the ladies to whom you referred me. I suppose I should have waited for their answer before engaging you, but I am such an impulsive creature, I always do just as I feel at the spur of the moment. My husband calls me ‘a child of impulse,’ and the words describe me exactly. I’m glad to see you back. I don’t know, I’m sure, what I should have said to Mr. Blight if you had decamped, for he does not appreciate my ability to read faces. The time I got taken in with my last cook--the one we found lying with her head in a brass kettle, and the kitchen fire gone out, at the very hour when I had a large company assembled to dine with me--Charles said, ‘Fudge, don’t let us hear any more about physiognomy.’ You see, I engaged the woman because her face was all that could be desired. And since that time Charles won’t hear a word about physiognomy.” Lally sat down, obeying a wave of Mrs. Blight’s hand. That “child of impulse,” silly, garrulous, and puffed up with self-importance and vulgarity, pursued her theme until she had exhausted it. “You are looking very well, Miss Bird,” she said, changing the subject, “but all in black--why, you are quite a black-bird, I declare,” and she laughed at her own wit. “Are you in mourning? Have you lately lost a friend?” “Yes, madam,” replied Lally sorrowfully, “I have lately lost the only friend I had in the whole world.”