suffering. The face was pretty, the figure slim and elegant, and the
look of obvious sadness in the dark, almond-shaped eyes was
calculated to inspire sympathy and pity.

Yet, strangely enough, Lady Blakeney felt repelled and chilled by this
sombrely-dressed young person: an instinct, which she could not have
explained and which she felt had no justification, warned her that
somehow or other, the sadness was not quite genuine, the appeal for
the poor not quite heartfelt.

Nevertheless, she took out her purse, and dropping some few
sovereigns into the capacious reticule, she said very kindly:

"I hope that you are satisfied with your day's work, Madame; I fear
me our British country folk hold the strings of their purses somewhat
tightly these times."

The woman sighed and shrugged her shoulders.

"Oh, Madame!" she said with a tone of great dejection, "one does
what one can for one's starving countrymen, but it is very hard to
elicit sympathy over here for them, poor dears!"

"You are a Frenchwoman, of course," rejoined Marguerite, who had
noted that though the woman spoke English with a very pronounced
foreign accent, she had nevertheless expressed herself with wonderful
fluency and correctness.

"Just like Lady Blakeney herself," replied the other.