ine house in St. James's Square, of which she had heard her
mother talk.

He liked her--had liked her from the first. How natural that she should
tend and brighten his old age--how natural, and how impossible! He was
not the man to brave the difficulties and discomforts inseparable from
the sudden appearance of an illegitimate granddaughter in his household,
and if he had been, Julie, in her fierce, new-born independence, would
have shrunk from such a step. But she had been drawn to him; her heart
had yearned to her kindred.

No; neither love nor kindred were for her. As she entered the little,
bare room over the doorway, which she had begun to fill with books and
papers, and all the signs of the literary trade, she miserably bid
herself be content with what was easily and certainly within her grasp.
The world was pleased to say that she had a remarkable social talent.
Let her give her mind to the fight with Lady Henry, and prove whether,
after all, the salon could not be acclimatized on English soil. She had
the literary instinct and aptitude, and she must earn money. She looked
at her half-written article, and sighed to her books to save her.

That evening Therese, who adored her, watched her with a wistful and
stealthy affection. Her idol was strangely sad and pale. But she asked
no questions. All she could do was to hover about "mademoiselle" with
soft, flattering services, till mademoiselle went to bed, and then to
lie awake herself, quietly waiting till all sounds in the room opposite
had died away, and she might comfort her dumb and timid devotion with
the hope that Julie slept.

Sleep, however, or no sleep, Julie was up early next day. Before the
post arrived she was already dressed, and on the point of descending to
the morning coffee, which, in the old, frugal, Bruges fashion, she and
Leonie and the child took in the kitchen together. Lady Henry's opinion
of her as a soft and luxurious person dependent on dainty living was, in
truth, absurdly far from the mark. After those years of rich food and
many servants in Lady Henry's household, she had resumed the penurious
Belgian ways at once, without effort--indeed, with alacrity. In the
morning she helped Leonie and Therese with the housework. Her quick
fingers washed and rubbed and dusted. In less than a week she knew every
glass and cup in Cousin Mary Leicester's well-filled china cupboard, and
she and Therese between them kept the two sitting-rooms spotless.