your
mistress at this time of day. No one but a Carset could wear a thing
like that, without looking vulgar; but you saw what an air she gave it."

Judson was astounded. She had absolutely trembled, when that round hat
came into the room, in defiance of the faint protest which she had
ventured to make.

"I was afraid, my lady, that a dress like that might set you against the
young lady."

"Set me against my own grandchild, and she so unmistakably a Carset! I
am surprised, Judson."

"I am sure there was no idea in my mind of giving offense. She is a
pretty young lady enough."

"Pretty! Are you speaking of that charming young creature, with the air
of a duchess and the heart of a child, only to say that she is pretty?"

"Did I say pretty, my lady, when I think her so beautiful?"

"All the more beautiful, Judson, for not being so tall as some of the
ladies of our house. She owes nothing to size. Perhaps you have
remarked, Judson, that those of the purest Carset blood have never been
large women."

A sweet, complacent smile quivered around those old lips, as the
countess settled back among her cushions. She, a petite creature, had
Carset blood in her veins from both parents, and in her youth she had
been distinguished among the most beautiful women of England. She was
thinking of those days, when those withered eyelids closed again, and
they followed her softly into her sleep, which the grim maid watched
with the faithfulness of a slave.

Meantime Clara went into the long picture gallery, and there among a
crowd of statues, and deeply-toned pictures by the old masters, made the
acquaintance of her stately ancestors, and of the ladies who had one and
all been peeresses in their own right--an access of rank, prized almost
like a heritage of royalty by the old lady in the tower-chamber.

No one had gone with the young heiress into the gallery, for, with her
childish wilfulness, she had preferred to go alone, and single out the
Carset ladies by their resemblance to the old countess.

All at once she stopped before the picture of a lady, whose face struck
her with a sudden sense of recognition. She looked at it earnestly--the
golden brown hair, the downcast eyes, the flowing white dress. Across
the mind of that wondering girl, came the shadow of another woman upon
a white bed, with hair and eyes like those; but wide open, and to her
lips came two words, "My Mother!"

CHAPTER XXIII.

EXPLANATIONS AND CONCES