ill their tenderness hushed her back to calmness.

"No one can come to you, sweetheart, while I am here." How often she
heard the low words murmured lovingly over her head! "See, I am holding
you! You are quite safe. No one can take you from me."

And Dinah would cling to her beloved empress till her panic died away.

On one of these occasions Scott was present, and he presently left the
sick-room with a look in his eyes that gave him a curiously hard
expression. He went deliberately in search of Billy whom he found playing
a not very spirited game with the two little daughters of the
establishment. The weather had broken, and several people had left in
consequence.

Billy was bored as well as anxious, and his attitude said as much as he
unceremoniously left his small playfellows to join Scott.

"Just amusin' the kids," he observed explanatorily. "How is she now?"

Scott linked his hand in the boy's arm. "She's pretty bad, Billy," he
said. "Both lungs are affected. The doctor thinks badly of her, though he
still hopes he may pull her through."

"You may you mean," returned Billy. "Can't say the de Vignes have put
themselves out at all over her. There's Rose flirts all day long with
your brother, and Lady Grace grumbling continually about the folly of
undertaking other people's responsibilities. She swears she must get back
at the end of next week for their precious house-party. And the Colonel
fumes and says the same. I told him I shouldn't go unless she was out of
danger, though goodness knows, sir, I don't want to sponge on you."

Scott's hand pressed his arm reassuringly. "Don't imagine such a thing
possible!" he said. "Of course you must stay if she isn't very much
better by that time. But now, Billy, tell me--if it isn't an unwelcome
question--why doesn't your sister want your mother to come to her?"

Billy gave him one of his shrewd glances. "She's told you that, has she?
Well, you know the mater is rather a queer fish, and I doubt very much if
she'd come if you asked her."

"My good fellow!" Scott said. "Not if she were dying?"

"I doubt it," said Billy, unmoved. "You see, the mater hasn't much use
for Dinah, except as a maid-of-all work. Never has had. It's not
altogether her fault. It's just the way she's made."

"Good heavens!" said Scott, and added, as if to himself, "That little
fairy thing!"

"She can't help it," said Billy. "She can't get on with the female
species. It's like cats, you know,-