"You have not answered me, but I am sure you know," said I, "Alice, what does papa mean?" Alice looked at me earnestly for a moment. "I am only a servant," she said, as if she consulted with herself, "I have no right to meddle in their secrets--but I care for nothing in the world but them, and I have served _her_ all her days. Yes, Miss Hester, I will tell you," she concluded suddenly, "because you'll be a woman soon, and should know what evil spirits there are in this weary, weary life." But though she said this, she was slow to begin an explanation--she put away the curtains first, carefully smoothed down and folded into a great chest which stood open beside us, and then she began to lift up my few books, and the simple furniture of my toilette-table, and packed them away for the removal. It was while she was thus engaged, softly coming and going, and wiping off specks of dust in a noiseless, deliberate way, that she told me the story of my father and mother. "My young lady was an only child, like you, Miss Hester," said Alice, "but her father's land was all entailed, and it has passed to a distant cousin now, as you know. I think she was only about eighteen when the two young gentlemen from Cottiswoode began to visit at our house. Mr. Brian came as often as your father--they were always together, and I remember very well how I used to wonder if both of the brothers were in love with Miss Helen, or if the one only came for the other's sake. Mr. Brian was a very different man from your papa, my dear--there was not such a charitable man in the whole country, and he never seemed to care for himself--but somehow, just because he was so good, he never seemed in earnest about anything he wished--you could not believe he cared for anything so much, but he would give it up if another asked it from him. It's a very fine thing to be kind and generous, Miss Hester, but that was carrying it too far, you know. If I had been a lady I never would have married Mr. Brian Southcote, for I think he never would have loved me half so much as he would have loved the pleasure of giving me away.