he old
woman, "and the way that precious baby takes to you, I don't think I
should be willing to say what I am going to do, miss. Though my dear
mistress wished it, and said, the very last night, 'You must tell her
all about it, some day, Nana,'--and I promised, to quiet her,--I don't
think I could bring myself to it if I hadn't lived with you and known
you." And then the good nurse told her strange and moving tale.

She described how her master had come out young and careless-hearted to
New Zealand in the service of the government, and how scandalised and
angry his father and mother, the old Tory squire and his wife, had been
to receive from him, after a year or two, letters brimming with a boyish
love for his "beautiful Maori princess," whom he described as having
"the sweetest heart and the loveliest eyes in the world." It gave them
little comfort to hear that her father was one of the wealthiest Maoris
in the island, and that, though but half civilised himself, he had had
his daughter well educated in the "bishop's" and other English schools.
To them she was a savage. There was no threat of disinheritance, for
there was nothing for him to inherit. There was little money, and the
estate was entailed on the elder brother. But all that could be done
to intimidate him was done, and in vain. Then silence fell between the
parents and the son.

But one spring day came the news of a grandson, called Benjamin after
his grandfather, and an urgent letter from their boy himself, enclosing
a prettily and humbly worded note from the new strange daughter, begging
for an English nurse. She told them that she had now no father and no
mother, for they had died before the baby came, and if she might love
her husband's parents a little she would be glad.

"My lady read the letters to me herself," Mrs. Bentley said; "I'd taken
the housekeeper's place a bit before, and she asked me to find her a
sensible young woman. Well, I tried, but there wasn't a girl in the
place that was fit to nurse Master Horace's child. And the end of it
was, I came myself, for Master Horace had been like my own when he was a
little lad. My lady pretended to be vexed with me, but the day I sailed
she thanked me in words I never thought to hear from her, for she was
a bit proud always." The faithful servant's voice trembled. She leaned
back in her chair, and forgot for the moment the new house and the new
duties. She was back again in the old nursery with the f