The great house standing all shadowed in the wintry sunshine, every shutter shut and every blind drawn down, was a dismal sight enough, not calculated to raise any one’s spirits. The great door was standing open, and inside were several servants, Upjames in the foreground to receive the visitors and show his own pre-eminence. Behind stood the old vicar, with whom and his big head and his mumbling voice Letitia felt a sickening familiarity as if he were always there in the worst moments of her life. She remembered him just like that when she had made her assault in the vicarage in the vain endeavor to frighten Mary from marrying old Frogmore. She had seen him again before the birth of the child. And here he was once more as she came in cold and trembling, terrified for what was before her. Behind the vicar another man was hanging about, a tall man in a long coat, which swung behind him as he strolled about the hall, stooping, with his shoulders thrust up to his ears. She divined at once that this was the mad-doctor not yet separated from his patient, Letitia let her fur cloak drop off her shoulders into the footman’s hands, and appeared not to see the vicar’s hand which was stretched out with the intention of giving her that silent clasp of sympathy which is the right thing in a house of mourning. “Oh, how do you do?” she said. “I am going at once to Mary,” and passed him quickly, leaving John to make the explanation. She felt that as far as she herself was concerned the worst must be got over at once. Upstairs in the corridor a woman was standing whom Letitia did not know, too serious for a maid, too important for a servant of the house. “Are you Lady Frogmore’s--attendant?” said Mrs. Parke. She was half afraid, as the servants were, of the woman, who, if not mad herself, was a mad nurse. “Yes, my lady,” said the stranger, a mode of address which made the heart burn in Letitia’s bosom. Ah! but for that child, that wretched little boy, that would be her proper title now. “I am Mrs. Parke,” she said breathlessly. “How is Lady Frogmore?” “Oh, my lady, she is wonderful,” said the woman. Lady Frogmore’s attendant knew what her mistress thought, and she believed like Mary that Mrs. Parke was now in reality Lady Frogmore, though good breeding prevented her from adopting the title until the old lord was buried. “She is as much herself as her dearest friend could wish her--she is as collected as you or me.” “What an extraordinary thing?” said Letitia. “Is it thought to be a complete cure?” “Ah!” said the nurse, “that no man can tell till time has proved it. Things that come of a sudden sometimes go off on a sudden too. But in the meantime what a blessing, my lady! She was able to be with his lordship to the last. And as calm now, and as composed, though sorrowful, as a lady could be.” “Then she is quite----safe?” said Letitia with a slight shudder.