Mrs Hamilton anxiously watched Mavis’s face.

“Not a bit like it seems to—­to some people,” replied Mavis.

Mrs Hamilton’s face fell.  She was lost in anxious thought for some moments.

“Do you mind?” asked Mavis.

“Of course not.  But we’ll talk it over after you’ve seen Mr Williams.”

“But is it so necessary for his happiness that he should be infatuated with anyone?”

“It might keep him from worse things.  He’s very impulsive and romantic.  I’ve quite a motherly interest in the boy.  You might assist me to reclaim him.”

[Footnote:  ]Although Mrs Hamilton spoke such maternal sentiments, Mavis looked in vain for the motherly expression upon her face, which she felt should inevitably accompany such words.  Mrs Hamilton’s face was hard, expressionless, cold.  Presently she said: 

“If you would care to go to your room, it’s on the next floor, and the second door you come to on the right.  If it isn’t good enough, let me know.”

“It’s sure to be,” remarked Mavis.

“Parkins, my maid, will come to you in ten minutes.  Rest till then, as to-night I want you to look your best.”

Mavis thanked and left Mrs Hamilton.  She then found her way to her chamber.  She was as surprised and delighted with this as she had been with the other two rooms, perhaps more so, because she reflected, with an immense satisfaction, that it might be her very own.  The room was furnished throughout with satinwood; blue china bowls decorated the tops of cabinets; a painted satinwood spinet stood in a corner; the hearth was open and tiled throughout with blue Dutch tiles; the fire burned in a brass brazier which was suspended from the chimney.

Thought Mavis, as she looked rapturously about her: 

“Just the room I should love to have had for always, if—­if things had been different.”

A door on the right of the fireplace attracted her.  She turned the handle of this, to find it opened on to a luxuriously fitted bathroom, in a corner of which a fire was burning.  Mavis returned to the bedroom, still wondering at the sudden change in her fortunes; even now, with all these tangible evidences of the alteration in her condition, she could scarcely believe it to be true:  it all seemed like something out of a book or on the stage, two forms of distraction which, according to Miss Allen, did anything but represent life as it really was.  She was still mentally agape at her novel surroundings when Parkins, Mrs Hamilton’s maid, entered the room to dress Mavis.

Parkins’s appearance surprised her; she was wholly unlike her conception of what a lady’s-maid should be.  Instead of being unassumingly dressed, quiet, self-effacing, Parkins was a bold, buxom wench, with large blue eyes and a profusion of fair hair.  She wore white lace underskirts, openwork silk stockings, and showy shoes.  Her manner was that of scarcely veiled familiarity.  She carried upon her arm a gorgeous evening gown.