She had taken Mrs. Vincent by both hands, and placed her in a chair, and sat down beside her. The widow had not a word to say. What with the praise of her son, which was music to her ears--what with the confusion of her own position, she was painfully embarrassed and at a loss, and anxiously full of explanations. "Susan has, I have no doubt; but I am sorry I left home on Wednesday morning, and we did not know then they were expected; but we have a spare room, and Susan, I don't doubt----" "The fact is, my mother had left home before they could have reached Lonsdale," interposed Vincent; "but my sister would take care of them equally well. They are all safe. A note came this morning announcing their arrival. My mother," said the young man, hastily, "returns almost immediately. It will make no difference to the strangers." "I am sure Susan will make them comfortable, and the beds would be well aired," said Mrs. Vincent; "but I had sudden occasion to leave home, and did not even know of it till the night before. My dear," she said, with hesitation, "did you think Mrs. Hilyard would know? I brought Susan's note to show you," she added, laying down that simple performance in which Susan announced the receipt of Arthur's letter, and the subsequent arrival of "a governess-lady, and the most beautiful girl that ever was seen." The latter part of Susan's hurried note, in which she declared this beautiful girl to be "very odd--a sort of grown-up baby," was carefully abstracted by the prudent mother. The strange woman before them took up the note in both her hands and drank it in, with an almost trembling eagerness. She seemed to read over the words to herself again and again with moving lips. Then she drew a long breath of relief. "Miss Smith is the model of a governess-lady," she said, turning with a composure wonderfully unlike that eagerness of anxiety to Mrs. Vincent again--"she never writes but on her day, whatever may happen; and yesterday did not happen to be her day. Thank you; it is Christian charity. You must not be any loser meantime, and we must arrange these matters before you go away. This is not a very imposing habitation," she said, glancing round with a movement of her thin mouth, and comic gleam in her eye--"but that makes no difference, so far as they are concerned. Mr. Vincent knows more about me than he has any right to know," continued the strange woman, turning her head towards him for the moment with an amused glance--"a man takes one on trust sometimes, but a woman must always explain herself to a woman: perhaps, Mr. Vincent, you will leave us together while I explain my circumstances to your mother?" "Oh, I am sure it--it is not necessary," said Mrs. Vincent, half alarmed; "but, Arthur, you were to ask----" "What were you to ask?" said Mrs. Hilyard, laying her hand with an involuntary movement upon a tiny note lying open on the table, to which Vincent's eyes had already wandered.