ning of the noise."

"'Eleanor, I never complain,'" he murmured; but he put down the banjo,
rose and stretched himself, and left the room, pretending to slip as he
passed Nell in the passage, and flattening her against the wall.

She gave him a noiseless push and went for the remainder of the cream.

Mrs. Lorton received it with a sigh and a patient "I thank you,
Eleanor;" and while she sipped the chocolate, and snipped at the bread
and butter--she ate the latter as if it were a peculiarly distasteful
medicine in the solid--the girl tidied the room. It was the only really
well-furnished room in the cottage; Nell's little chamber in the roof
was as plain as Marguerite's in "Faust," and Dick's was Spartan in its
Character; but a Wolfer--Mrs. Lorton was a distant, a very distant
connection by a remote marriage of the noble family of that name--cannot
live without a certain amount of luxury, and, as there was not enough to
go round, Mrs. Lorton got it all. So, though Nell's little bed was
devoid of curtains, her furniture of the "six-guinea suite" type and her
carpet a square of Kidderminster, her stepmother's bed was amply draped,
possessed its silk eider-down and lace-edged pillows; there was an
Axminster on the floor, an elaborate dressing table furnished with a
toilet set, and--the fashionable lady's indispensable--a cheval glass.

"I think I will get up in half an hour, if you will be good enough to
send Molly up to me," said Mrs. Lorton, sinking onto her pillow as if
exhausted by her struggle with the chocolate.

"Yes, mamma," assented the girl. "What will you have for lunch?"

"Lunch!" sighed Mrs. Lorton, with an assumption of weary indifference.
"It is really of no consequence, Eleanor. I eat so little, especially in
the middle of the day. Perhaps if you could get me a sweetbread I might
manage a few morsels. But do not trouble. You know how much I dislike
causing trouble. A sweetbread nicely browned--on a small, a very small
piece of toast; quite dry, please, Eleanor."

"Yes, mamma, I know," said Eleanor; but she looked out of the window
rather doubtfully. Sweetbreads were not easily obtained at the only
butcher's shop in the village; and, when they were, they were dear; but
she had just paid the long-running bill, and----

"I'll go up to Smart's and see about it," she said. "Is there anything
you want in the village, mamma?"

Mrs. Lorton sighed again; she rarely spoke without a sigh.

"If you really want