house which had changed hands had nothing
noticeable about it. It looked from the outside as it had always looked.
The door-steps were kept clean, milk was taken in twice a day, and local
tradesmen's carts left things in the ordinary manner. A doctor
occasionally called to see someone, and the only person who had inquired
about the patient (she was a friendly creature, who met Mrs. Cupp at the
grocer's, and exchanged a few neighbourly words) was told that ladies
who lived in furnished apartments, and had nothing to do, seemed to find
an interest in seeing a doctor about things working-women had no time to
bother about. Mrs. Cupp's view seemed to be that doctor's visits and
medicine bottles furnished entertainment. Mrs. Jameson had "as good a
colour and as good an appetite as you or me," but she was one who
"thought she caught cold easy," and she was "afraid of fresh air."

Dr. Warren's interest in the Extraordinary Case increased at each visit
he made. He did not see the ruby ring again. When he had left the house
after his first call, Mrs. Cupp had called Lady Walderhurst's attention
to the fact that the ring was on her hand, and could not be considered
compatible with even a first floor front in Mortimer Street. Emily had
been frightened and had removed it.

"But the thing that upsets me when I hand him in," Jane said to her
mother anxiously in private, "is the way she can't help looking. You
know what I mean, mother,--her nice, free, _good_ look. And we never
_could_ talk to her about it. We should have to let her know that it's
more than likely he thinks she's just what she isn't. It makes me mad to
think of it. But as it had to be, if she only looked a little awkward,
or not such a lady, or a bit uppish and fretful, she would seem so much
more real. And then there's another thing. You know she always _did_
carry her head well, even when she was nothing but poor Miss Fox-Seton
tramping about shopping with muddy feet. And now, having been a
marchioness till she's got used to it, and knowing that she is one,
gives her an innocent, stately look sometimes. It's a thing she doesn't
know of herself, but I do declare that sometimes as she's sat there
talking just as sweet as could be, I've felt as if I ought to say, 'Oh!
if you please, my lady, if you _could_ look not quite so much as if
you'd got on a tiara.'"

"Ah!" and Mrs. Cupp shook her head, "but that's what her Maker did for
her. She was born just what she looks,