comfortable bedroom that the house afforded. The furniture, indeed, was a
medley. It seemed to have been gathered out of many other rooms. But at
any rate there was abundance of it; a carpet much worn, but still useful,
covered the floor; and Ellen had lit the fire without being summoned to
do it. Laura recognised that Mr. Helbeck must have given a certain number
of precise orders on the subject of his sister.

Poor Mrs. Fountain, however, was not happy. She was sitting up in bed,
wrapped in an unbecoming flannel jacket--Augustina had no taste in
clothes--and looking with an odd repugnance at the very passable
breakfast that Laura placed before her. Laura did not quite know what to
make of her. In old days she had always regarded her stepmother as an
easy-going, rather self-indulgent creature, who liked pleasant food and
stuffed chairs, and could be best managed or propitiated through some
attention to her taste in sofa-cushions or in tea-cakes.

No doubt, since Mrs. Fountain's reconciliation with the Church of her
fathers, she had shown sometimes an anxious disposition to practise the
usual austerities of good Catholics. But neither doctor nor director had
been able to indulge her in this respect, owing to the feebleness of her
health. And on the whole she had acquiesced readily enough.

But Laura found her now changed and restless.

"Oh! Laura, I can't eat all that!"

"You must," said Laura firmly. "Really, Augustina, you _must_."

"Alan's gone out," said Augustina, with a wistful inconsequence,
straining her eyes as though to look through the diamond panes of the