mbering some thoughtless words, which escaped you
sixteen or seventeen years since?"

"I am not quite such a fool as that, Mr. Governor. What I was thinking
of was an unpleasant correspondence between the Minister and myself.
Before I was so unfortunate as to meet with Mr. Tenbruggen, I obtained
a chance of employment in a public Institution, on condition that I
included a clergyman among my references. Knowing nobody else whom I
could apply to, I rashly wrote to Mr. Gracedieu, and received one
of those cold and cruel refusals which only the strictest religious
principle can produce. I was mortally offended at the time; and if your
friend the Minister had been within my reach--" She paused, and finished
the sentence by a significant gesture.

"Well," I said, "he is within your reach now."

"And out of his mind," she added. "Besides, one's sense of injury
doesn't last (except in novels and plays) through a series of years. I
don't pity him--and if an opportunity of shaking his high position among
his admiring congregation presented itself, I daresay I might make a
mischievous return for his letter to me. In the meanwhile, we may drop
the subject. I suppose you understand, now, why I concealed my name from
you, and why I kept out of the house while you were in it."

It was plain enough, of course. If I had known her again, or had heard
her name, I might have told the Minister that Mrs. Tenbruggen and Miss
Chance were one and the same. And if I had seen her and talked with her
in the house, my memory might have shown itself capable of improvement.
Having politely presented the expression of my thanks, I rose to go.

She stopped me at the door.

"One word more," she said, "while Selina is out of the way. I need
hardly tell you that I have not trusted her with the Minister's secret.
You and I are, as I take it, the only people now living who know the
truth about these two girls. And we keep our advantage."

"What advantage?" I asked.

"Don't you know?"

"I don't indeed."

"No more do I. Female folly, and a slip of the tongue; I am old and
ugly, but I am still a woman. About Miss Eunice. Somebody has told the
pretty little fool never to trust strangers. You would have been amused,
if you had heard that sly young person prevaricating with me. In one
respect, her appearance strikes me. She is not like either the wretch
who was hanged, or the poor victim who was murdered. Can she be the
adopted child? Or is it the ot