She answered with bitter ingratitude. “That is no reason I should be falling in love with her, as you are doing, Laurie Willoughby! I can pay my debt of gratitude more acceptably, no doubt, with some of my cast-off clothes and old hats.” CHAPTER IV. JEALOUSY AS CRUEL AS THE GRAVE. Miss Willoughby did not have the household waiting on the steps to welcome her visitors, for they arrived in a downpour of sleet and rain, and had to be escorted indoors under the shelter of two umbrellas. The rain had blown into the open sides of the carriage and drenched them both, but it had not cooled the heat of the blue-eyed beauty’s temper, and, though she forced a few chilly smiles for her Aunt Cyrilla, she made up for it by violence to the luckless servants who waited on her, bringing a pretty wrapper of the old lady’s to replace her wet garments until the wagon with her trunks arrived from the station. She lay down then on her white couch to rest, but presently her aunt came in, all anxiety, to ask about the wound to her temple, of which she had just heard from Laurie. “Oh, no, I don’t need any court-plaster. It is nothing, a mere scratch. Please don’t fuss over it!” she said petulantly. “Poor dear, you are nervous--and no wonder! Laurie has just been telling me all about your thrilling experience. I am very sorry it happened. Satan has always been skittish, but he never behaved so badly before. As for Saint, he is very gentle, and never gives any trouble, except when he follows his brother’s bad example. I shudder when I think what a narrow escape you and Laurie had from death! How fortunate that Gipsy came to the rescue just in the nick of time.” “I suppose Laurie has been making her out quite a heroine to you!” sneered Lelia spitefully, as she shook out the damp lengths of her golden tresses over the back of her chair. “You don’t like poor Gipsy any better than you did in your juvenile days, I see.” “Why should I? She was an interloper, and had no more business at The Crags than a stray dog. I can’t understand why you have let her stay here all this while, Aunt Cyrilla!” She was startled and angered, when the old lady replied placidly: “Really, I don’t see how I could ever get along without Gipsy now!” “You don’t mean that you have taken her for your maid?” “Oh, no, not that! I still have Lucinda, the mulatto; though, like her mistress, she is getting old and feeble. But since my faithful companion and secretary, Mrs. Bond, died six months ago, Gipsy has just slipped into her place, and fulfils her duties remarkably well.” Lelia’s heart gave a strangling throb of jealous anger, and she said bitterly: “You don’t mean that you stooped to educate the gipsy brat--made a lady of such scum!” Miss Willoughby, without in the least comprehending the depth of her niece’s rage, returned somewhat huffily: