she was Her Majesty," she said, "she couldn't be more sacred to me,
nor me more happy to be allowed the privilege."

Jane had begun to put her mother's belongings away. She was folding and
patting a skirt on the bed. She fussed about a little nervously and then
lifted a rather embarrassed face.

"I'm glad you _are_ here, mother," she said. "I'm thankful to _have_
you!"

Mrs. Cupp ceased fanning and stared at her with a change of expression.
She found herself involuntarily asking her next question in a half
whisper.

"Why, Jane, what is it?"

Jane came nearer.

"I don't know," she answered, and her voice also was low. "Perhaps I'm
silly and overanxious, because I _am_ so fond of her. But that Ameerah,
I actually dream about her."

"What! The black woman?",

"If I was to say a word, or if you did, and we was wrong, how should we
feel? I've kept my nerves to myself till I've nearly screamed sometimes.
And my lady would be so hurt if she knew. But--well," in a hurried
outburst, "I do wish his lordship was here, and I do wish the Osborns
wasn't. I do wish it, I tell you that."

"Good Lord!" cried Mrs. Cupp, and after staring with alarmed eyes a
second or so, she wiped a slight dampness from her upper lip.

She was of the order of female likely to take a somewhat melodramatic
view of any case offering her an opening in that direction.

"Jane!" she gasped faintly, "do you think they'd try to take her life?"

"Goodness, no!" ejaculated Jane, with even a trifle of impatience.
"People like them daren't. But suppose they was to try to, well, to
upset her in some way, what a thing for them it would be."

After which the two women talked together for some time in whispers,
Jane bringing a chair to place opposite her mother's. They sat knee to
knee, and now and then Jane shed a tear from pure nervousness. She was
so appalled by the fear of making a mistake which, being revealed by
some chance, would bring confusion upon and pain of mind to her lady.

"At all events," was Mrs. Cupp's weighty observation when their
conference was at an end, "here we both are, and two pairs of eyes and
ears and hands and legs is a fat lot better than one, where there's
things to be looked out for."

Her training in the matter of subtlety had not been such as Ameerah's,
and it may not be regarded as altogether improbable that her observation
of the Ayah was at times not too adroitly concealed, but if the native
woman knew that she was