“Oh, don’t mind me, Miss,” said Polly. She could not look Miss Despard in the face and call her Lottie, knowing, however she might consent to waive her own rights, that Miss Despard was still Miss Despard, whatever Polly might do. Not a thing on her that was worth five shillings, not a brooch even; nothing like a bracelet; a bit of a cotton frock, no more; but she was still Miss Despard, and unapproachable. Polly, with her bracelets on each wrist, rings twinkling on her hands as she took her supper, in a blue silk, and knowing herself to be an officer’s lady--Mrs. Captain Despard--with all this, could not speak to her husband’s daughter except as Miss. She could not understand it, but still it was so. The little crooked hall was full of boxes when Lottie came out; and Mary stood among them, wondering how she was to get them upstairs. Perhaps she had been listening a little at the door, for Mary’s consternation was as great as Lottie’s. “Do you think, Miss, it’s real and true? Do you think as she’s married, sure? Mother wouldn’t let me stay a day if there was anything wrong, and I don’t know as I’ll stay anyhow,” Mary said. “Wrong? what could be wrong?” said Lottie. She was less educated in knowledge of this kind than the little maid-of-all-work. It troubled her to see the boxes littering the hall, but _she_ could not carry them upstairs. For a moment the impulse to do it, or, at least, to help Mary in doing it, came into her mind; but, on second thoughts, she refrained. What had she to do with this new-comer into the house, who was not even a visitor, who had come to remain? Lottie went upstairs without saying any more. She went first into the little faded drawing-room, where there was no light except that which came from the window and the lamp in the Dean’s Walk. It was not beautiful. She had never had any money to decorate it, to make it what it might have been, nor pretty furniture to put into it. But she sat down on her favourite little chair, in the dark, and felt as if she had gone to sit by somebody that was dead, who had been a dear friend. How friendly and quiet the little room had been! giving her a centre for her life, a refuge for her thoughts. But all that was over. She had never known before that she had liked it or thought of it much; but now, all at once, what a gentle and pleasant shelter it had been! As Lottie thought of everything, the tears came silently and bitterly into her eyes. She herself had been ungrateful, unkind to the little old house, the venerable old place, the kind people. They had all been kind to her. She had visited her own disappointment upon them, scorning the neighbours because they were less stately than she expected them to be; visiting upon them her own discontent with her position, her own disappointment in being less important than she expected. Lottie was hard upon herself, for she had not been unkind to anyone, but was, on the contrary, a favourite with