"I’m not surprised. You look as if you might be a General’s daughter. Well, then, you don’t need to have your duties defined to you. You will have to keep the house--to run it, in fact--pay the servants’ wages and prevent them from worrying me. You will write any letters I want, and you will drive out with me when I do go out, but that won’t be often now that the winter is coming on. Then, you will have to dine with Mr. Bodley-Chard in the evening and keep him amused when he is in the house." "Oh!" said Isla with a small gasp, "will you tell me quite what that means?" "It means just what it says," answered Mrs. Chard with her wandering, somewhat stupid smile. "It is slow for him at home, of course, for I am hardly ever able to be down." "Have you been out of health a long while?" "Yes--about two years now. I have got worse in the last six months. Perhaps I shall not live long. I don’t mind. I haven’t had much happiness. People soon get tired of a dull old woman, don’t they?" "But why be dull?" asked Isla cheerfully. "You have the means of making life pleasant." "But there is nobody to care, you see." Isla wondered about Mr. Bodley-Chard, but she did not ask any questions. She felt sorry for the woman who, in the midst of her luxurious surroundings, looked like a person from whom all the zest for life had departed, leaving her with a withered heart. One thing interested her--she felt that she would like to see Mr. Bodley-Chard, possibly because in him might be found a partial solution of the problem of the heaviness of his wife’s life. "Well, will you come? No--I don’t want to ask any questions. Either you’re the right person or the wrong one. All the others I’ve ever engaged have been the wrong ones, and, somehow, I knew it before they began their duties. I believe you are going to be the right one. Will you take it on?" "Yes, if you think I can do what you require." "I’m sure you can. It ought not to be hard. When I was able to be about I had no difficulty in managing my house. But a fool can’t manage servants. That’s the chief difficulty--to keep them in their place. And you look as if you could do that. Can you come to-day?" "Not to-day. To-morrow I might. May I ask you another question? It is about dress. I have only one evening frock. It is old and very shabby. Should I be expected to go down to dinner every night in an evening frock? That is the only thing I can’t be happy about. If I could only have my evenings free!" "You’ll have a good many of them free, because Mr. Bodley-Chard is a club-man and is fond of the theatre. Most of them have complained of the deadly dulness. I go to sleep early, you see." "I shall come to-morrow afternoon, then," said Isla, rising. She did so, for she saw that a drowsiness was creeping over Mrs. Chard and that the heavy white lids were drooping over the dull eyes.