kind-hearted impulses, and I'm sure I'm punished enough this time."

Lady Groombridge gave a snort.

"But who is she? Is she one of the Malcot Dexters?"

"Yes; I can tell you that much. She is the daughter of a John Dexter I
used to know a little. He died many years ago, not very long after
divorcing his wife, and this poor girl was brought up by an aunt, and
Sir Edmund says she had a bad time of it. Then she made one of those odd
arrangements people make nowadays, to be taken about by this Mrs.
Delaport Green, and I met them at Aunt Emily's, and, of course, I
thought they were all right and asked them to come here. After that I
heard a little more about the girl from some one in London; I can't
remember who it was now."

"Poor thing," said Rose; "she looks as if she had had a sad childhood.
But what curious eyes; I find her looking through and through me."

"Yes; you have evidently got a marked attraction for her."

"Repulsion, I should have called it," said Rose, with her gentle laugh.

Lady Groombridge laughed too, and got up to go to bed.

"And what became of the mother?"

"She is living--" said the other; then she caught her sleeve in the
table very clumsily, and was a moment or two disengaging the lace. "She
is living," she then said rather slowly, "in Paris, I think it is, but