She could not well stop the child, but every word was rending her heart.

“Lady Isabel was our very, very own mamma,” pursued Lucy.  “This mamma is not.”

“Do you love this one as you did the other?” breathed Lady Isabel.

“Oh, I loved mamma—­I loved mamma!” uttered Lucy, clasping her hands.  “But its all over.  Wilson said we must not love her any longer, and Aunt Cornelia said it.  Wilson said, if she loved us she would not have gone away from us.”

“Wilson said so?” resentfully spoke Lady Isabel.

“She said she need not let that man kidnap her.  I am afraid he beat her, for she died.  I lie in my bed at night, and wonder whether he did beat her, and what made her die.  It was after she died that our new mamma came home.  Papa said that she was to be our mamma in place of Lady Isabel and we were to love her dearly.”

“Do you love her?” almost passionately asked Lady Isabel.

Lucy shook her head.

“Not as I loved mamma.”

Joyce entered to show the way to the schoolroom, and they followed her upstairs.  As Lady Isabel stood at the window, she saw Mr. Carlyle depart on foot on his way to the office.  Barbara was with him, hanging fondly on his arm, about to accompany him to the park gates.  So had she fondly hung, so had she accompanied him, in the days gone forever.

Barbara came into the schoolroom in the course of the morning, and entered upon the subject of their studies, the different allotted hours, some to play, some to work.  She spoke in a courteous but decided tone, showing that she was the unmistakable mistress of the house and children, and meant to be.  Never had Lady Isabel felt her position so keenly—­never did it so gall and fret her spirit; but she bowed to meek obedience.  A hundred times that day did she yearn to hold the children to her heart, and a hundred times she had to repress the longing.

In a soft, damask dress, not unlike the color of the walls from which the room took its name, a cap of Honiton lace shading her delicate features, sat Mrs. Hare.  The justice was in London with Squire Pinner, and Barbara had gone to the Grove and brought her mamma away in triumph.  It was evening now, and Mrs. Hare was paying a visit to the gray parlor.  Miss Carlyle had been dining there, and Lady Isabel, under plea of a violent headache, had begged to decline the invitation to take tea in the drawing-room, for she feared the sharp eyes of Miss Carlyle.  Barbara, upon leaving the dessert-table, went to the nursery, as usual, to her baby, and Mrs. Hare took the opportunity to go and sit a few minutes with the governess—­she feared the governess must be very lonely.  Miss Carlyle, scorning usage and ceremony, had remained in the dining-room with Mr. Carlyle, a lecture for him, upon some defalcation or other most probably in store.  Lady Isabel was alone.  Lucy had gone to keep a birthday in the neighborhood, and William was in the nursery.  Mrs. Hare found her in a sad attitude, her hands pressed upon her temples.  She had not yet made acquaintance with her beyond a minute’s formal introduction.