little
servant's tutelage, ran in and hid her face in her mother's skirts,
peering sometimes at the stranger.

When she had finished the letter, Phoebe handed it back to its owner.

'Who wrote that?'

'A friend of mine who's working at South Kensington. You can see--she
knows a lot about artists.'

'And what she doesn't know she makes up,' said Phoebe, with slow
contempt. 'You tell her, Miss Morrison, from me, she might be better
employed than writing nasty, lying gossip about people she never saw.'

She caught up her child, who flung her arms round her mother's neck,
nestling on her shoulder.

'Oh, well, if you're going to take it like that--' said the other,
with a laugh.

'I _am_ taking it like that, you see,' said Phoebe, walking to the
door and throwing it wide. 'You'd better go, Miss Morrison. I am sure
I can't imagine why you came. I should have thought you'd have
had sorrow enough of your own, without trying to make it for other
people.'

The other winced.

'Well, of course, if you don't want to know the truth, you needn't.'

Phoebe laughed.

'It isn't truth,' she said. 'But if it was--Did you want to know the
truth about your father?' Her white face, encircled by the child's
arms, quivered as she spoke.

'Don't you abuse my father,' cried Bella, furiously.

Phoebe's eyes wavered and fell.

'I wasn't going to abuse him,' she said, in a choked voice. 'I was
sorry for him--and for your mother. But _you've_ got a hard, wicked
heart--and I hope I'll never see you again, Miss Morrison. I'll thank
you, please, to leave my house.'

The other drew down her veil with an affected smile and shrug.
'Good-bye, Mrs. Fenwick. Perhaps you'll find out before long that my
friend wasn't such a fool to write that letter--and I wasn't such a
beast to tell you--as you think now. Good-bye!'

Phoebe said nothing. The girl passed her insolently, and left the
house.

Phoebe put the child to bed, sat without touching a morsel while Daisy
supped, and then shut herself into the parlour, saying that she was
going to sit up over her work, to which only a few last touches
were wanting. It had been her intention to go with the carrier to
Windermere the following day in order to hand it over to the shop that
had got her the commission, and ask for payment.

But as soon as she was alone in the room, with her lamp and her work,
she swept its silken, many-coloured mass aside, found a sheet of
paper, and began to write.