ven up that he might sit with her.

One of the drawing rooms, a beautiful, lofty apartment looking over the
park to the hills beyond, was arranged as my mother's room; there all
that she loved best was taken.

The one next to it was made into a sleeping room for her, so that she
should never have to be carried up and down stairs. A room for her maid
came next. And my father had a door so placed that the chair could be
wheeled from the rooms through the glass doors into the grounds.

"You think, then," she said, "that I shall not grow well just yet,
Roland?"

"No, my darling, not just yet," he replied.

What words of mine could ever describe what that sick room became? It
was a paradise of beautiful flowers, singing birds, little fragrant
fountains and all that was most lovely. After a time visitors came, and
my mother saw them; the poor came, and she consoled them.

"My lady" was with them once more, never more to walk into their
cottages and look at the rosy children. They came to her now, and that
room became a haven of refuge.

So it went on for three years, and I woke up one morning to find it was
my thirteenth birthday.

CHAPTER V.

That day both my parents awoke to the fact that I must have more
education. I could not go to school; to have taken me from my mother
would have been death to both of us. They had a long conversation, and
it was decided that the wisest plan would be for me to have a
governess--a lady who would at the same time be a companion to my
mother. I am quite sure that at first she did not like it, but afterward
she turned to my father, with a sweet, loving smile.

"It will relieve you very much," she said, "and give you time to get
out."

"I shall never leave you," he said, "no matter who comes."

Several letters were written; my father gave himself unheard-of trouble;
and after some weeks of doubt, hesitation and correspondence, a
governess was selected for me. She had been living with Lady Bucarest,
and was most highly recommended; she was amiable, accomplished, good
tempered and well qualified for the duties Lady Tayne wished her to
fulfill.

"What a paragon!" cried my father, as he read through the list of
virtues.

"I hope we shall not be disappointed," said my mother. "Oh, Laura,
darling, if it could be, I would educate you entirely, and give you into
no other hands."

It was March when my governess--by name Miss Sara Reinhart--came. I
always associate her in m