“Hold your tongue, you foolish woman,” cried Miss Susan; “do you think I will tread on the child? It is sleeping, poor little thing. Go at once, and make ready the East room; light a fire, and make everything comfortable. This--lady--is going to stay all night.” “Yes--every night,” interposed the visitor, with a smile. “You hear what I say to you, Martha,” said Miss Susan, seeing that her maid turned gaping to the other speaker. “The East room, directly; and there is a child’s bed, isn’t there, somewhere in the house?” “Yes, sure, Miss Susan; Master Herbert’s, as he had when he come first, and Miss Reine’s, but that’s bigger, as it’s the one she slept in at ten years old, afore you give her the little dressing-room; and then there’s an old cradle--” “I don’t want a list of all the old furniture in the house,” cried Miss Susan, cutting Martha short, “and get a bath ready and some food for the child. Everything is to be done to make--this lady--comfortable--for the night.” “Ah! I knew Madame would be a mother to me,” cried the stranger, suddenly rising up, and folding her unwilling hostess in an unexpected and unwelcome embrace. Miss Susan, half-resisting, felt her cheek touch the new-comer’s damp and somewhat rough black woollen gown with sensations which I cannot describe. Utter dismay took possession of her soul. The punishment of her sin had taken form and shape; it was no longer to be escaped from. What should she do, what could she do? She withdrew herself almost roughly from the hold of her captor, which was powerful enough to require an effort to get free, and shook her collar straight, and her hair, which had been deranged by this unexpected sign of affection. “Let everything be got ready at once,” she said, turning with peremptory tones to Martha, who had witnessed, with much dismay and surprise, her mistress’s discomfiture. The wind sighed and groaned in the great chimney, as if it sympathized with her trouble, and blew noisy blasts of rain against the windows. Miss Susan suppressed the thrill of hot impatience and longing to turn this new-comer to the door which moved her. It could not be done to-night. Nothing could warrant her in turning out her worst enemy to the mercy of the elements to-night.