she read it in the
presence of her mother, to whom she handed it at once, as a matter
of course. A black frown came across the Countess's brow, and a look
of displeasure, almost of anger, rested on her countenance. "Is it
wrong, mamma?" asked the girl.

"It is a part of the whole;--but, my dear, it shall not signify.
Conquerors cannot be conquerors all at once, nor can the vanquished
be expected to submit themselves with a grace. But it will come. And
though they should ignore me utterly, that will be as nothing. I have
not clung to this for years past to win their loves."

"I will not go, mamma, if they are unkind to you."

"You must go, my dear. It is only that they are weak enough to think
that they can acknowledge you, and yet continue to deny to me my
rights. But it matters nothing. Of course you shall go,--and you
shall go as the daughter of the Countess Lovel."

That mention of the lady's-maid had been unfortunate. Mrs. Lovel had
simply desired to make it easy for the young lady to come without
a servant to wait upon her, and had treated her husband's far-away
cousin as elder ladies often do treat those who are younger when the
question of the maid may become a difficulty. But the Countess, who
would hardly herself have thought of it, now declared that her girl
should go attended as her rank demanded. Lady Anna, therefore, under
her mother's dictation, wrote the following reply:--

Wyndham Street, 3rd August, 183--.

DEAR MRS. LOVEL,

I shall be happy to accept your kind invitation to Yoxham,
but can hardly do so before the 10th. On that day I will
leave London for York inside the mail-coach. Perhaps you
can be kind enough to have me met where the coach stops.
As you are so good as to say you can take her in, I will
bring my own maid.

Yours affectionately,

ANNA LOVEL.

"But, mamma, I don't want a maid," said the girl, who had never been
waited on in her life, and who had more often than not made her
mother's bed and her own till they had come up to London.

"Nevertheless you shall take one. You will have to make other changes
besides that; and the sooner that you begin to make them the easier
they will be to you."

Then at once the Countess made a pilgrimage to Mr. Goffe in search of
funds wherewith to equip her girl properly for her new associations.
She was to go, as Lady Anna Lovel, to stay with Mrs. Lovel and
Miss Lovel and the little Lovels. And she was to