as you like. What a surprise for all of us your coming has been! Dear,
dear! who would have expected such a thing this morning? But I knew by
the twitching of my corns that something uncommon was going to happen. I
was really frightened of telling her ladyship that you were here.
There's no knowing how she might have taken it; and there's no knowing
what she will decide to do with you to-morrow."

"But what has Lady Chillington to do with me in any way?" I asked.
"Before this morning I never even heard her name; and now it seems that
she is to do what she likes with me."

"That she will do what she likes with you, you may depend, dear," said
Mrs. Dance. "As to how she happens to have the right so to do, that is
another thing, and one about which it is not my place to talk nor yours
to question me. That she possesses such a right you may make yourself
certain. All that you have to do is to obey and to ask no questions."

I sat in distressed and bewildered silence for a little while. Then I
ventured to say: "Please not to think me rude, but I should like to know
who Sister Agnes is."

Mrs. Dance stirred uneasily in her chair and bent her eyes on the fire,
but did not immediately answer my question.

"Sister Agnes is Lady Chillington's companion," she said at last. "She
reads to her, and writes her letters, and talks to her, and all that,
you know. Sister Agnes is a Roman Catholic, and came here from the
convent of Saint Ursula. However, she is not a nun, but something like
one of those Sisters of Mercy in the large towns, who go about among
poor people and visit the hospitals and prisons. She is allowed to live