the walk and are going, Eleanor, you might ask Mrs.
Porter if she has got that toilet vinegar for me. She promised to get it
down from London quite a week ago. It is really too ridiculous! But what
can one expect in this hole, and living among a set of barbarians? I
know that I shall never grow accustomed to this life of savagery; my
memory of the past is too acute, alas! But I must stifle it; I must
remember that the great trial of my life has been sent for my good, and
I will never complain. Not one word of discontent shall ever pass my
lips. My dear Eleanor, you surely are not going to be so mad as to open
that window! And my neuralgia only just quiet!"

"I beg your pardon, mamma. The room seemed so hot, and I forgot. I've
closed it again; see! Let me draw the eider-down up; that's it. I won't
forget the toilet vinegar."

"I thank you, Eleanor; and you might get this week's _Fashion Gazette_.
It is the only paper I care for; but it is not unnatural that I should
like to see it occasionally. One may be cut off from all one's friends
and relations, may be completely out of the world of rank and
refinement, but one likes now and then to read of the class to which one
belongs, but from which one is, alas! forever separated."

"I'll get the _Fashion Gazette_ if Mrs. Porter has it, mamma. I won't be
long, and Molly will hear you if you want her before the time."

Mrs. Lorton sighed deeply in acknowledgment, and Nell left the room.

She had been bright and girlish enough while romping with her brother,
but the scene with her stepmother had left its impression on her face;
the dark-gray eyes were rather sad and weary; there was a slight droop
at the corners of the sweetly curved lips; but the change lent an
indescribable charm to the girlish face. Looking at it, as it was then,
no man but would have longed to draw the slim, graceful figure toward
him, to close the wistful eyes with a kiss, to caress the soft hair with
a comforting hand. There was a subtle fascination in the very droop of
the lips which would have haunted an artist or a poet, and driven the
ordinary man wild with love.

Mrs. Lorton had called Shorne Mills a "hole," but as a matter of fact,
the village stood almost upon the brow of the hill down which ran the
very steep road to the tiny harbor and fishing place which nestled under
the red Devon cliffs; and barbaric as the place might be, it was
beautiful beyond words. No spot in this loveliest of all cou