"You shouldn't be doing my work," scolded Julia. "It's not for the likes of you to be--" "I shall lie down for half an hour," said the Marchioness calmly. "Come at half-past six, Julia." "Just Lady Jane, ma'am? No one else?" "No one else," said the other, and preceded Julia down the two flights of stairs to the charming little apartment on the third floor. "She is a dear girl, and I enjoy having her all to myself once in a while." "She is so, ma'am," agreed Julia, and added. "The oftener the better." At half-past seven Julia ran down the stairs to open the gate at the bottom. She admitted a slender young woman, who said, "Thank you," and "Good evening, Julia," in the softest, loveliest voice imaginable, and hurried up, past the apartment of the Marchioness, to the fourth floor. Julia, in cap and apron, wore a pleased smile as she went in to put the finishing touches on the coiffure of her mistress. "Pity there isn't more like her," she said, at the end of five minutes' reflection. Patting the silvery crown of the Marchioness, she observed in a less detached manner: "As I always says, the wonderful part is that it's all your own, ma'am." "I am beginning to dread the stairs as much as any one," said the Marchioness, as she passed out into the hall and looked up the dimly lighted steps. "That is a bad sign, Julia." A mass of coals crackled in the big fireplace on the top floor, and a tall man in the resplendent livery of a footman was engaged in poking them up when the Marchioness entered. "Bitterly cold, isn't it, Moody?" inquired she, approaching with stately tread, her lorgnon lifted. "It is, my lady,--extremely nawsty," replied Moody. "The trams are a bit off, or I should 'ave 'ad the coals going 'alf an hour sooner than--Ahem! They call it a blizzard, my lady." "I know, thank you, Moody." "Thank you, my lady," and he moved stiffly off in the direction of the foyer. The Marchioness languidly selected a magazine from the litter of periodicals on the table. It was _La Figaro_, and of recent date. There were magazines from every capital in Europe on that long and time-worn table. A warm, soft light filled the room, shed by antique lanthorns and wall-lamps that gave forth no cruel glare. Standing beside the table, the Marchioness was a remarkable picture. The slight, drooping figure of the woman with the dust-cloth and creaking knees had been transformed, like Cinderella, into a fairly regal creature attired in one of the most fetching costumes ever turned out by the rapacious Deborah, of the first floor front! The foyer curtains parted, revealing the plump, venerable figure of a butler who would have done credit to the lordliest house in all England. "Lady Jane Thorne," he announced, and a slim, radiant young person entered the room, and swiftly approached the smiling Marchioness. CHAPTER II OUT OF THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE EARTH