ous chance had deserted her already. The
lock was turned. She tried the door opposite, on her left hand.
The boots ranged symmetrically in a row, and the razors on the
dressing-table, told her at once that she had not found the right room
yet. She returned to the right-hand side of the landing, walked down a
little passage leading to the back of the house, and tried a third door.
The door opened, and the two opposite extremes of female humanity, Mrs.
Wragge and Mrs. Lecount, stood face to face in an instant!

"I beg ten thousand pardons!" said Mrs. Lecount, with the most
consummate self-possession.

"Lord bless us and save us!" cried Mrs. Wragge, with the most helpless
amazement.

The two exclamations were uttered in a moment, and in that moment Mrs.
Lecount took the measure of her victim. Nothing of the least importance
escaped her. She noticed the Oriental Cashmere Robe lying half made, and
half unpicked again, on the table; she noticed the imbecile foot of Mrs.
Wragge searching blindly in the neighborhood of her chair for a lost
shoe; she noticed that there was a second door in the room besides the
door by which she had entered, and a second chair within easy reach, on
which she might do well to seat herself in a friendly and confidential
way. "Pray don't resent my intrusion," pleaded Mrs. Lecount, taking the
chair. "Pray allow me to explain myself!"

Speaking in her softest voice, surveying Mrs. Wragge with a sweet smile
on her insinuating lips, and a melting interest in her handsome black
eyes, the housekeeper told her little introductory series of falsehoods
with an artless truthfulness of manner which the Father of Lies himself
might have envied. She had heard from Mr. Bygrave that Mrs. Bygrave
was a great invalid; she had constantly reproached herself, in her
idle half-hours at Sea View (where she filled the situation of Mr. Noel
Vanstone's housekeeper), for not having offered her friendly services to
Mrs. Bygrave; she had been directed by her master (doubtless well known
to Mrs. Bygrave, as one of her husband's friends, and, naturally, one of
her charming niece's admirers), to join him that day at the residence
to which he had removed from Aldborough; she was obliged to leave early,
but she could not reconcile it to her conscience to go without calling
to apologize for her apparent want of neighborly consideration; she had
found nobody in the house; she had not been able to make the servant
hear; she had pr