d so get rid of that
self-reproach which had by this time reached a morbid pitch, through her
over-sensitiveness to a situation in which a large majority of women and
men would have seen no falseness.

Full of this curious intention, she quietly assented to the request, and
laughingly bade them put themselves in listening order.

'An old story will suit us,' said the lady who had importuned her. 'We
have never heard one.'

'No; it shall be quite new,' she replied. 'One not yet made public;
though it soon will be.'

The narrative began by introducing to their notice a girl of the poorest
and meanest parentage, the daughter of a serving-man, and the fifth of
ten children. She graphically recounted, as if they were her own, the
strange dreams and ambitious longings of this child when young, her
attempts to acquire education, partial failures, partial successes, and
constant struggles; instancing how, on one of these occasions, the girl
concealed herself under a bookcase of the library belonging to the
mansion in which her father served as footman, and having taken with her
there, like a young Fawkes, matches and a halfpenny candle, was going to
sit up all night reading when the family had retired, until her father
discovered and prevented her scheme. Then followed her experiences as
nursery-governess, her evening lessons under self-selected masters, and
her ultimate rise to a higher grade among the teaching sisterhood. Next
came another epoch. To the mansion in which she was engaged returned a
truant son, between whom and the heroine an attachment sprang up. The
master of the house was an ambitious gentleman just knighted, who,
perceiving the state of their hearts, harshly dismissed the homeless
governess, and rated the son, the consequence being that the youthful
pair resolved to marry secretly, and carried their resolution into
effect. The runaway journey came next, and then a moving description of
the death of the young husband, and the terror of the bride.

The guests began to look perplexed, and one or two exchanged whispers.
This was not at all the kind of story that they had expected; it was
quite different from her usual utterances, the nature of which they knew
by report. Ethelberta kept her eye upon Lord Mountclere. Soon, to her
amazement, there was that in his face which told her that he knew the
story and its heroine quite well. When she delivered the sentence ending
with the professedly fictiti