am not mistaken, she knows how to take care of herself, and could be trusted anywhere, in any company, without a duenna.  She has a history,—­I feel sure of it.  She has been trained and taught as young persons of higher position in life are brought up, and does not belong in the humble station in which we find her.  But inasmuch as the Mistress says nothing about her antecedents, we do not like to be too inquisitive.  The two Annexes are, it is plain, very curious about her.  I cannot wonder.  They are both good-looking girls, but Delilah is prettier than either of them.  My sight is not so good as it was, but I can see the way in which the eyes of the young people follow each other about plainly enough to set me thinking as to what is going on in the thinking marrow behind them.  The young Doctor’s follow Delilah as she glides round the table,—­they look into hers whenever they get a chance; but the girl’s never betray any consciousness of it, so far as I can see.  There is no mistaking the interest with which the two, Annexes watch all this.  Why shouldn’t they, I should like to know?  The Doctor is a bright young fellow, and wants nothing but a bald spot and a wife to find himself in a comfortable family practice.  One of the Annexes, as I have said, has had thoughts of becoming a doctress.  I don’t think the Doctor would want his wife to practise medicine, for reasons which I will not stop to mention.  Such a partnership sometimes works wonderfully well, as in one well-known instance where husband and wife are both eminent in the profession; but our young Doctor has said to me that he had rather see his wife,—­if he ever should have one,—­at the piano than at the dissecting-table.  Of course the Annexes know nothing about this, and they may think, as he professed himself willing to lecture on medicine to women, he might like to take one of his pupils as a helpmeet.

If it were not for our Delilah’s humble position, I don’t see why she would not be a good match for any young man.  But then it is so hard to take a young woman from so very lowly a condition as that of a “waitress” that it would require a deal of courage to venture on such a step.  If we could only find out that she is a princess in disguise, so to speak,—­that is, a young person of presentable connections as well as pleasing looks and manners; that she has had an education of some kind, as we suspected when she blushed on hearing herself spoken of as a “gentille petite,” why, then everything would be all right, the young Doctor would have plain sailing,—­that is, if he is in love with her, and if she fancies him,—­and I should find my love-story,—­the one I expected, but not between the parties I had thought would be mating with each other.

Dear little Delilah!  Lily of the valley, growing in the shade now,—­perhaps better there until her petals drop; and yet if she is all I often fancy she is, how her youthful presence would illuminate and sweeten a household!  There is not one of us who does not feel interested in her,—­not one of us who would not be delighted at some Cinderella transformation which would show her in the setting Nature meant for her favorite.