be the most heartless creature in
the world."

"Is it so very bad with them, Grace?"

"Indeed it is bad. I don't think you can imagine what mamma has to
go through. She has to cook all that is eaten in the house, and then,
very often, there is no money in the house to buy anything. If you
were to see the clothes she wears, even that would make your heart
bleed. I who have been used to being poor all my life,--even I, when
I am at home, am dismayed by what she has to endure."

"What can we do for her, Grace?"

"You can do nothing, Lily. But when things are like that at home you
can understand what I feel in being here."

Mrs. Giles and Gregory had now completed their task, or had so nearly
done so as to make Miss Dale think that she might safely leave the
church. "We will go in now," she said; "for it is dark and cold, and
what I call creepy. Do you ever fancy that perhaps you will see a
ghost some day?"

"I don't think I shall ever see a ghost; but all the same I should be
half afraid to be here alone in the dark."

"I am often here alone in the dark, but I am beginning to think I
shall never see a ghost now. I am losing all my romance, and getting
to be an old woman. Do you know, Grace, I do so hate myself for being
such an old maid."

"But who says you're an old maid, Lily?"

"I see it in people's eyes, and hear it in their voices. And they
all talk to me as if I were very steady, and altogether removed from
anything like fun and frolic. It seems to be admitted that if a girl
does not want to fall in love, she ought not to care for any other
fun in the world. If anybody made out a list of the old ladies in
these parts, they'd put down Lady Julia, and mamma, and Mrs. Boyce,
and me, and old Mrs. Hearne. The very children have an awful respect
for me, and give over playing directly they see me. Well, mamma,
we've done at last, and I have had such a scolding from Mrs. Boyce."

"I daresay you deserved it, my dear."

"No, I did not, mamma. Ask Grace if I did."

"Was she not saucy to Mrs. Boyce, Miss Crawley?"

"She said that Mr. Boyce scratches his nose in church," said Grace.

"So he does; and goes to sleep, too."

"If you told Mrs. Boyce that, Lily, I think she was quite right to
scold you."

Such was Miss Lily Dale, with whom Grace Crawley was staying;--Lily
Dale with whom Mr. John Eames, of the Income-tax Office, had been
so long and so steadily in love, that he was regarded among his
fellow-clerks