It was the first time that Charlotte had been away from her, and she was blaming herself bitterly. Perhaps self-reproach was never sharper than Mrs. Darling's as she paced the drawing-room this night. It seemed to her, now, that she might have foreseen something of the sort; that she should have kept her attractive daughter under her own eye. But she thought she had taken every precaution. She had charged Mary Anne not to admit gentlemen as visitors during her absence--unless, she had added, they were of a certain standing as to age, and married. Some few she had especially interdicted by name. Above all others would she have interdicted Mr. St. John of Alnwick, had she supposed that this would be the result; and she mentally heaped the most bitter reproaches on Mary Anne, and felt that she should like to shake her. She turned to the bell with a sudden impulse, and rang it; indeed, Mrs. Darling was always an impulsive woman. All the servants had gone upstairs on Mrs. Darling's entrance, except the lady's-maid; hours were early in the quiet household. Mary Prance came in: a slender woman of five-and-thirty, with dark eyes and brown marks on her thin face; she wore a neat grey alpaca gown and small white linen wristbands and collar. A woman devoted to her mistress's interests, but disliked by the servants, who went so far as to call her a "deceitful cat." But Mary Prance was a clever woman, and not deceitful on the whole. She gratefully liked Mrs. Darling, who was always kind to her, and she loved the eldest daughter; but she cared for no one else in the wide world. She had entered the service as housemaid, a young girl, but her mistress had called her "Prance" from the first. Mrs. Darling--you remember the hint I gave you--could not call her servants by their simple Christian names. She turned sharply as the door opened. "Where's Miss Darling?" "Miss Darling has been in bed some time, ma'am. She went at eight o'clock. Her sore-throat was painful, though a trifle easier." "Prance, who has visited here during my absence?" interrupted Mrs. Darling, impatiently drowning the words. "What gentlemen?" The lady's-maid considered for a moment, recalling the visitors. "Dr. Graves, ma'am; he has come the oftenest, I think. And Mr. Pym, and old Sir William----" "Not those old people, Prance; I don't care to hear about them," said Mrs. Darling, peevishly. "I mean young men---single men." "Not any, I think," answered Prance, after a pause. "Miss Darling was denied to them." "Mr. St. John of Alnwick has come?" "Oh yes, Mr. St. John has come. He has come often." With the answer, Mrs. Darling quitted the room for the chamber of her unconsciously offending daughter. The poor girl woke up, hot and startled at the unexpected entrance; at the sharp questions that so rudely assailed her ear. Not for some few moments did she understand sufficiently to answer.