e hardly knew how to manage in it ourselves."

"You wrote me word to take it. As to me, I can accommodate myself to any
space. Where there's plenty of room, I take plenty; where there's not, I
can put up with a closet. I have made Mirrable give me my old rooms here:
you of course take Hart's now."

"I am very tired," said Maude. "I think I will have some tea, and go to
bed."

"Tea!" shrieked the dowager. "I have not yet had dinner. And it's
waiting; that's more."

"You can dine without me, mamma," she said, walking upstairs to the new
rooms. The dowager stared, and followed her. There was an indescribable
something in Maude's manner that she did not like; it spoke of incipient
rebellion, of an influence that had been, but was now thrown off. If she
lost caste once, with Maude, she knew that she lost it for ever.

"You could surely take a little dinner, Maude. You must keep up your
strength, you know."

"Not any dinner, thank you. I shall be all right to-morrow, when I've
slept off my fatigue."

"Well, I know I should like mine," grumbled the countess-dowager, feeling
her position in the house already altered from what it had been during
her former sojourn, when she assumed full authority, and ordered things
as she pleased, completely ignoring the new lord.

"You can have it," said Maude.

"They won't serve it until Hartledon arrives," was the aggrieved answer.
"I suppose he's walking up from the station. He always had a queer habit
of doing that."

Maude lifted her eyes in slight surprise. Her solitary arrival was a
matter of fact so established to herself, that it sounded strange for any
one else to be in ignorance of it.

"Lord Hartledon has not come down. He is remaining in London."

The old dowager peered at Maude through her little eyes. "What's that
for?"

"Business, I believe."

"Don't tell me an untruth, Maude. You have quarrelled."

"We have not quarrelled. We are perfectly good friends."

"And do you mean to tell me that he sent you down alone?"

"He sent the servants with me."

"Don't be insolent, Maude. You know what I mean."

"Why, mamma, I do not wish to be insolent. I can't tell you more, or
tell it differently. Lord Hartledon did not come down with me, and the
servants did."

She spoke sharply. In her tired condition the petty conversation was
wearying her; and underlying everything else in her heart, was the
mortifying consciousness that he had _not_ come down with her, chafing