"Would he dine with me if I had only ginger beer to offer him?" she asked herself, as she went back in the brougham. "Would he? He looks so honest and so true!--so incapable of a mean, unworthy action! I wish I were as poor--as poor as Una. How quietly she sits. She has just the air of one of the great ones of the earth--the air which I, with all my title and wealth, shall never have. I wonder who she is, and whether Mr. Stephen thinks her as beautiful as I do! He looked at her as he went in--well, just as I would that _some one else_ would look at me. How handsome he is, so different to Stephen Davenant. Ah, me! I know now why Brighton was so hateful; if Jack Newcombe had been there I should not have hungered and pined for London! What a miserable, infatuated being I am. I am as bad as that foolish maid of mine. Yes, just as bad, for if Jack Newcombe came and asked me, I should run away with him as she did with her young man!" Still thinking of him, she reached home and went up to her own room, where Mrs. Fellowes, the long-suffering, hastened to meet her. "My dear, I'm so glad you've come. How long you have been." "My dear, you say that every time I come in. What is the matter--another maid run away?" "No, but a maid has come, at least a young person--I was going to say lady--who wants the situation." "Well, a lady's maid ought to be a lady," said Lady Bell, languidly. "Where is she?" "In my room," said Mrs. Fellowes. "She came with a note from Lady Challoner. It seems the poor girl has been in trouble--she has lost her father--and not caring to go for a governess----" "For which I don't blame her," said Lady Bell. "She is desirous of getting an engagement as a companion or lady's maid." "A companion's worse off than a governess, isn't she?" said Lady Bell, naively. Mrs. Fellowes smiled. "Yes. What is her name?" asked Lady Bell. "Well, there's the point," said Mrs. Fellowes. "Her name is Laura Treherne, but as some of her friends--she hasn't many, she says--might think that she had done wrong in taking a menial situation she wishes to be known by some other name." "I hate mysteries and aliases," said Lady Bell. "I don't think I shall engage her. She'll be too proud to do my hair and copy all my dresses in common material. Well, I'll see her." "I'll send her away if you like," said Mrs. Fellowes; "but I think you'll like her." "Do you? Then I know exactly what she's like before I see her if she has taken your fancy. Some prim old maid in black cotton and thick shoes." Mrs. Fellowes smiled and rang the bell, and bade a servant to ask the young person who was waiting to step that way. Lady Bell began taking off her gloves yawningly, but stopped suddenly, and looked up with an air of surprise as the door opened and a tall girl, with dark hair and eyes, entered. CHAPTER XXIX. Lady Bell overmastered her surprise, and asking the young girl to sit down, looked at her critically as she did so.