can be severed by me at any moment."

"Seven years ago your ladyship impressed that fact so strongly on my
mind that I have never forgotten it. I have never felt myself to be
other than a dependent on your bounty."

"A very praiseworthy feeling, young lady, and one which I trust you will
continue to cherish. Not that I wish other people to look upon you as a
dependent. I wish--" She broke off abruptly, and stared helplessly round
the room. Suddenly her head began to shake. "Heaven help me! what do I
wish?" she exclaimed; and with that she began to cry, and seemed all in
a moment to have grown older by twenty years.

Janet, in her surprise, made a step or two forward, but Lady Chillington
waved her fiercely back. "Fool! fool! why don't you go away?" she cried.
"Why do you stare at me so? Go away, and send Dance to me. You have
spoilt my complexion for the day."

Janet left the room and sent Dance to her mistress, and then went off
for a ramble in the grounds. The seal of desolation and decay was set
upon everything. The garden, no longer the choice home of choice
flowers, was weed-grown and neglected. The greenhouses were empty, and
falling to pieces for lack of a few simple repairs. The shrubs and
evergreens had all run wild for want of pruning, and in several places
the dividing hedges were broken down, and through the breaches sheep had
intruded themselves into the private grounds. Even the house itself had
a shabby out-at-elbows air, like a gentleman fallen upon evil days.
Several of the upper windows were shuttered, some of the others showed a
broken pane or two. Here and there a shutter had fallen away, or was
hanging by a solitary hinge, suggesting thoughts of ghostly flappings