ike, you know. Speak to your aunt about it. I
suppose you have not been accustomed to wait upon yourself. Can you do
your own hair?"

He spoke with a smile, half-indulgent, half-contemptuous. Lesley
remembered, with intuitive comprehension of his mood, that her mother
was singularly helpless, and never dressed without Dayman's help, or
brushed the soft tresses that were still so luxuriant and so fair. She
rebelled at once against the unspoken criticism.

"I can do everything for myself," she said; "I can do my own hair and
mend my dresses and everything, because I am a schoolgirl; but of
course when I am older I expect to have my own maid, as every lady
does."

Mr. Brooke's short, hard laugh was distinctly unpleasing to her ear.

"I think you will find, when you are older," he said, with an emphasis
on the words, "that a great many ladies have to do without maids--and
very much better for them that they should--but as I do not wish to
stint you in anything, nor to oppose any fairly reasonable desire of
yours, I will tell your aunt to get you a maid as soon as possible."

"Oh, no, please!" cried Lesley, more alarmed than pleased by the
prospect. "I really do not wish for one; I do not wish you to have the
trouble--the ex----"

She stopped short: she did not quite like to speak of the "expense."

"It will not be much trouble to me if Sophia finds you a maid," said her
father drily; "and as to the expense, which is what I suppose you were
going to allude to, I am quite well able to afford it. Otherwise I
should not have proposed such a thing."

Lesley felt herself snubbed, and did not like it, but again kept
silence.

"I cannot promise you much amusement while you stay here," Mr. Brooke
went on, "but anything that you like to see or hear when you are in town
can be easily provided for. I mean in the way of picture galleries,
concerts, theatres--things of that kind. Your Aunt Sophia will probably
be too much occupied to take you to such places; but if you have a maid
you will be pretty independent. I wonder she did not think of it
herself. Of course a maid can go about with you, and so relieve her
mind."

"I am sorry to be troublesome," said Lesley, stiffly.

He cast an amused glance at her. "You won't trouble _me_, my dear. And
Mrs. Romaine says that she will call and make your acquaintance. I dare
say you will find her a help to you."

"Is she--a friend of yours?"

"A very old friend," said Caspar Brooke,