Then there was silence for a minute or two afterwards--no sound to be heard
but the cracking of Toby's whip and the rumbling of the waggons behind.

'Aren't you going to begin, mammie?' said Rosalie at length.

'I almost wish I hadn't promised to tell you, child,' said her mother
hurriedly; 'it cuts me up so to think of it; but never mind, you ought to
know, and you will know some day, so I had better tell you myself. Rosalie,
your mother was born a lady.

'Yes,' said the poor woman, as the child did not speak;

'I was never born to this life of misery, I brought myself to it. I chose
it,' she said bitterly; 'and I'm only getting the harvest of what I sowed
myself.'

When she had said this, she turned deadly pale, and shivered from head to
foot. Rosalie crept still closer to her, and put her little warm hand in
her mother's cold one. Then the poor woman by a strong effort controlled
herself, and she went on.

'So now, darling, I'll tell you all about it, just as if I was talking
about some one else; I'll forget it is myself, or I shall never be able to
tell it. I'll try and fancy I'm on the stage, and talking about the sorrows
and troubles of some one I never knew, and never cared for, and of whom I
shall never think again when my part is over.

'I was born in a country village, hundreds of miles from here, in the south
of England. My father was the squire of the place. We lived in a large