“What’s you or me, or any one,” cried Mrs. Prentiss, “in comparison of that poor little thing that can’t work for her living like we can; that is left on the charity of folks she don’t belong to?  I’d have forgiven my lady anything, if she’d done what was right by Miss Mary.  You’ll get a place, and a good place; and me, they’ll leave me here when the new folks come as have taken the house.  But what will become of her, the darling? and not a penny, nor a friend, nor one to look to her?  Oh, you selfish old woman! oh, you heart of stone!  I just hope you are feeling it where you’re gone,” the housekeeper cried.

But as she said this, the woman did not know who was looking at her with wide, wistful eyes, holding out her hands in appeal, receiving every word as if it had been a blow,—­though she knew it was useless.  Lady Mary could not help it.  She cried out to them, “Have pity upon me!  Have pity upon me!  I am not cruel, as you think,” with a keen anguish in her voice, which seemed to be sharp enough to pierce the very air and go up to the skies.  And so, perhaps, it did; but never touched the human atmosphere in which she stood a stranger.  Jervis was threading her needle when her mistress uttered that cry; but her hand did not tremble, nor did the thread deflect a hair’s-breadth from the straight line.  The young mother alone seemed to be moved by some faint disturbance.  “Hush!” she said, “is he waking?”—­looking towards the cradle.  But as the baby made no further sound, she too, returned to her sewing; and they sat bending their heads over their work round the table, and continued their talk.  The room was very comfortable, bright, and warm, as Lady Mary had liked all her rooms to be.  The warm firelight danced upon the walls; the women talked in cheerful tones.  She stood outside their circle, and looked at them with a wistful face.  Their notice would have been more sweet to her, as she stood in that great humiliation, than in other times the look of a queen.

“But what is the matter with baby?” the mother said, rising hastily.

It was with no servile intention of securing a look from that little prince of life that she who was not of this world had stepped aside forlorn, and looked at him in his cradle.  Though she was not of this world, she was still a woman, and had nursed her children in her arms.  She bent over the infant by the soft impulse of nature, tenderly, with no interested thought.  But the child saw her; was it possible?  He turned his head towards her, and flickered his baby hands, and cooed with that indescribable voice that goes to every woman’s heart.  Lady Mary felt such a thrill of pleasure go through her, as no incident had given her for long years.  She put out her arms to him as his mother snatched him from his little bed; and he, which was more wonderful, stretched towards her in his innocence, turning away from them all.

“He wants to go to some one,” cried the mother.  “Oh look, look, for God’s sake!  Who is there that the child sees?”