It is needless to say that Mary thought of nothing else all day. She did not answer the letter, but put it carefully into her desk after having read it over three or four times, and if she hesitated as to what reply she should make, it was not because of any objection she had to Lord Frogmore. In the afternoon she went to the nursery, where the nurse, a very fine person who considered herself much above supervision even from the mother, received her with scant courtesy. She stood over the children while Mary talked to them, and when little Letty pulled off a bit of old glove to show Mary a little sore finger, nurse made a step forward and pushed the little girl away. “I must ask you, Miss Hill, not to interfere with Miss Letty’s finger. I am treating it in the proper way, and I won’t have any meddling.” “But I have no desire to meddle,” said Mary, surprised. “Oh, we all know what it means when a lady is left to spy about,” said the woman, turning little Letty, who began to cry, out of the room. This was a very unpromising beginning, and nurse would not allow that the children should go downstairs in the evening to hear Mary play, and to sing their little songs about the piano. “When their mamma is here she can do as she pleases--but I don’t hold with such things,” said the nurse. Mary was all the more lonely in consequence in the twilight hour, which she was used to employ in amusing the children, and when she went downstairs later to see whether it was the design of the authorities downstairs to give her any dinner, she found Saunders in the dining-room with his elbows on the table and a bottle of wine before him reading the paper. He looked up at the sound of the door opening, and by instinct started up, but recollecting himself fell back in his chair and confronted her. “I consider,” said Saunders, “as this room is not in the ladies part of the ’ouse--but was you wanting anything, Miss ’Ill?” “You surprise me very much, Saunders,” said Mary, with a little quickening of the breath. “Mister Saunders, if you please--I don’t think would be out o’ place, miss. I am the head man when master is away.” “I think you are very much out of place where you are, Saunders--and that Mr. Parke would not be at all pleased----” “If he knew,” said Saunders. “I don’t say as ’e would. I’m a consulting of my own convenience, not thinking of him; and he’ll never know.” “How can you tell that? It will be my duty to tell him at once.”