“That won’t hurt baby,” said Lady Isabel.  “But if she has lived as lady’s maid, she probably does not understand the care of infants.”

“Yes she does.  She was upper servant at Squire Pinner’s before going to Mrs. Hare’s.  Five years she lived there.”

“I will see her,” said Lady Isabel.

Miss Carlyle left the room to send the servant in, but came back first alone.

“Mind, Lady Isabel, don’t you engage her.  If she is likely to suit you, let her come again for the answer, and meanwhile I will go down to Mrs. Hare’s and learn the ins and outs of her leaving.  It is all very plausible for her to put upon Barbara, but that is only one side of the question.  Before engaging her, it may be well to hear the other.”

Of course this was but right.  Isabel acquiesced, and the servant was introduced; a tall, pleasant-looking woman, with black eyes.  Lady Isabel inquired why she was leaving Mrs. Hare’s.

“My lady, it is through Miss Barbara’s temper.  Latterly—­oh, for this year past, nothing has pleased her; she had grown nearly as imperious as the justice himself.  I have threatened many times to leave, and last evening we came to another outbreak, and I left this morning.”

“Left entirely?”

“Yes, my lady.  Miss Barbara provoked me so, that I said last night I would leave as soon as breakfast was over.  And I did so.  I should be very glad to take your situation, my lady, if you would please to try me.”

“You have been the upper maid at Mrs. Hare’s?”

“Oh, yes, my lady.”

“Then possibly this situation might not suit you so well as you imagine.  Joyce is the upper servant here, and you would, in a manner, be under her.  I have great confidence in Joyce; and in case of my illness or absence, Joyce would superintend the nursery.”

“I should not mind that,” was the applicant’s answer.  “We all like Joyce, my lady.”

A few more questions, and then the girl was told to come again in the evening for her answer.  Miss Carlyle went to the Grove for the “ins and outs” of the affair, where Mrs. Hare frankly stated that she had nothing to urge against Wilson, save her hasty manner of leaving, and believed the chief blame to be due to Barbara.  Wilson, therefore, was engaged, and was to enter upon her new service the following morning.

In the afternoon succeeding to it, Isabel was lying on the sofa in her bedroom, asleep, as was supposed.  In point of fact, she was in that state, half asleep, half wakeful delirium, which those who suffer from weakness and fever know only too well.  Suddenly she was aroused from it by hearing her own name mentioned in the adjoining room, where sat Joyce and Wilson, the latter holding the sleeping infant on her knee, the former sewing, the door between the rooms being ajar.

“How ill she does look,” observed Wilson.

“Who?” asked Joyce.

“Her ladyship.  She looks just as if she’d never get over it.”