half-dozen valuable rings. Increasing years had not tended to make her
hands steadier than Janet remembered them as being when she last saw her
ladyship; and of late it had become a matter of some difficulty with her
to keep her head quite still: it seemed possessed by an unaccountable
desire to imitate the shaking of her hands. She was seated in an
easy-chair as Janet entered the room. Her breakfast equipage was on a
small table at her elbow.

As the door closed behind Janet, she stood still and curtsied.

Lady Chillington placed her glass to her eye, and with a lean forefinger
beckoned to Janet to draw near. Janet advanced, her eyes fixed steadily
on those of Lady Chillington. A yard or two from the table she stopped
and curtsied again.

"I hope that I have the happiness of finding your ladyship quite well,"
she said, in a low, clear voice, in which there was not the slightest
tremor or hesitation.

"And pray, Miss Hope, what can it matter to you whether I am well or
ill? Answer me that, if you please."

"I owe so much to your ladyship, I have been such a pensioner on your
bounty ever since I can remember anything, that mere selfishness alone,
if no higher motive be allowed me, must always prompt me to feel an
interest in the state of your ladyship's health."

"Candid, at any rate. But I wish you clearly to understand that whatever
obligation you may feel yourself under to me for what is past and gone,
you have no claim of any kind upon me for the future. The tie between us