it crossed her mind with a stab, as she lay resting on the sofa in her little sitting-room before dinner, that never in all her thirty-five years had any human being looked into her face with the same alternations of eagerness and satisfied pleasure she had seen on Harry Wharton’s, as he and Miss Boyce strolled the terrace together—­nor even with such a look as that silly baby Betty Macdonald had put on, as she sat on the stool at the heroine’s feet.

There was to be a small dinner-party at Alresford House that night.  Wharton was to be among the guests.  He was fast becoming one of the habitues of the house, and would often stay behind to talk to Lady Selina when the guests were gone, and Lord Alresford was dozing peacefully in a deep arm-chair.

Lady Selina lay still in the evening light, and let her mind, which worked with extraordinary shrewdness and force in the grooves congenial to it, run over some possibilities of the future.

She was interrupted by the entrance of her maid, who, with the quickened breath and heightened colour she could not repress when speaking to her formidable mistress, told her that one of the younger housemaids was very ill.  Lady Selina enquired, found that the doctor who always attended the servants had been sent for, and thought that the illness might turn to rheumatic fever.

“Oh, send her off to the hospital at once!” said Lady Selina.  “Let Mrs. Stewart see Dr. Briggs first thing in the morning, and make arrangements.  You understand?”

The girl hesitated, and the candles she was lighting showed that she had been crying.

“If your ladyship would but let her stay,” she said timidly, “we’d all take our turns at nursing her.  She comes from Ireland, perhaps you’ll remember, my lady.  She’s no friends in London, and she’s frightened to death of going to the hospital.”

“That’s nonsense!” said Lady Selina, sternly.  “Do you think I can have all the work of the house put out because some one is ill?  She might die even—­one never knows.  Just tell Mrs. Stewart to arrange with her about her wages, and to look out for somebody else at once.”

The girl’s mouth set sullenly as she went about her work—­put out the shining satin dress, the jewels, the hairpins, the curling-irons, the various powders and cosmetics that were wanted for Lady Selina’s toilette, and all the time there was ringing in her ears the piteous cry of a little Irish girl, clinging like a child to her only friend:  “O Marie! dear Marie! do get her to let me stay—­I’ll do everything the doctor tells me—­I’ll make haste and get well—­I’ll give no trouble.  And it’s all along of the work—­and the damp up in these rooms—­the doctor said so.”