Tears sprang to the woman’s eyes, but she put them back; and again there was silence, the significant breathing of the sufferer on the sofa becoming more and more weak and labored. By and by she looked up again, this time turning to the earl. She gazed upon him for a few moments, evidently in deep thought, and at length spoke. “Lord Allerdale, please do not interrupt me. I have a strange story to tell to you--one that I think will interest you. Will you let me tell it in my own way?” She paused for a little time, looking at him curiously, and then glancing toward the sofa, and, anon, toward where Percy and Cordelia sat near together. Finally she went on: “My lord, you have not forgotten when I was a servant in your family. Ten years--from the age of twelve to two-and-twenty--I was a member of your household. I see that you remember. “You remember too, that when your son George, then Lord Oakleigh, brought his young and beautiful wife home I was detailed to wait upon her, and I became, after a time, her especial servant. I had no other duties but to wait on her. She was kind; and she was, in her own way, just, but she was proud, and a strict observer of what she deemed the proprieties of life. “I had served Lady Oakleigh not quite a year when she discovered that I was soon to become a mother. She asked me who was my husband. At first I hesitated, and she misunderstood me; and finally, when I told her that I had been lawfully married to Hugh Maitland, she would not believe me. “But that was not all. She broke out into a harsh and bitter denunciation of my lover, as she called him. He was a smuggler and an outlaw, liable at any time to be gibbeted; and she would suffer me no longer to remain in her service. She cast me out, coldly, and, I felt, cruelly. “You, my lord, were away at the time, traveling on the continent. Had you been here I should have appealed to you, and I believe you would have taken pity on me, but there was no pity in the bosom of my lady; and her husband would not have crossed her for his life; for she, too, was about to become a mother. “And now, my lord, a curious thing happened. When I had been turned away, my lady, being so near to her motherhood, wanted a wet nurse in my place, and she found one; and who do you think it was? “My own sister!--the only relative of blood I had in the world. She was a widow; her husband dead only a few months; and was living in Burton. Huldah--that was her name--Huldah came; and the mistress liked her. She was plump, and strong, and healthy, with rosy cheeks and bright black eyes. “She was obedient, and meant to do her duty; but she was indignant at the way in which I had been treated; and, to make the matter worse, Lady Oakleigh so far forgot herself as to denounce me and terribly abuse my husband. It so happened that Hugh was a favorite with Huldah; and when she heard her lady so berate him she was very angry.