her husband would very much disapprove of it, and would be still
more angry at that than at her having her mother in her house; but then
Mr. Phillips was away, and her mother was there, and the present terror
conquered the distant one. She never knew what her mother might or
might not say, if she thwarted her in anything: she had distant
recollections of terrible punishments that always followed the
slightest act of disobedience, or even carelessness, in her childish
days; and though now she knew her mother would not strike her with her
hands, she was in constant dread of her tongue. So that now Mrs. Peck
took it for granted that she would be allowed to accompany her
daughter's maid--she dared not refuse it. Alice scarcely liked the idea
of going to walk to town with this strange woman; but at the same time
her curiosity as to what she might have to say was very great. She felt
that this Mrs. Mahoney had intelligence to give that was of great
importance, and that she wished to be secure from interruption. Mrs.
Phillips was constantly going in and out, for she was afraid to leave
her mother long with any one, and always looked suspicious of what they
might be talking about. Mary, the housemaid, and the nurse, too, seemed
to be curious about this old needlewoman, and were often coming in
unexpectedly.

When Mrs. Peck had put on her bonnet and shawl, and dropped her veil
over her face, she looked sufficiently respectable for a companion to
one so little known in Melbourne as Alice Melville, so she thought
there could be no harm in going out for an hour or two with her for the
sake of ascertaining if she had any light to throw on the dark subject
of Francis's birth.

When they got out of doors, Mrs. Peck appeared at first to be rather
anxious to resume the conversation which her daughter had interrupted;
but as they were pretty closely followed by two other pedestrians all
the way into town, she made up her mind to attend to Mrs. Phillips's
business first, so they went to Collins Street and bought the
trimmings. Then Mrs. Peck went to a bookseller's shop and purchased a
shilling novel that she said she had been told was very interesting,
but she appeared scarcely to know the name of it, and took the first
one the shopman gave to her.

Elsie thought she was a good deal more stared at than was agreeable,
and also that the shopmen in both establishments addressed her with a
good deal of familiarity. She had heard Miss Phill