endurable. I shall go back to Cumberland if
I can find a home there. The mountains will remind me of the days
which, sad as they were, were less sad than the present. I little
dreamed then when I had gained everything my loss would be so great
as it has been. Was the Earl there?"

"At our marriage? Oh yes, he was there."

"I shall ask him to do me a kindness. Perhaps he will let me live at
Lovel Grange?"

When the meeting was over Lady Anna returned to her husband
overwhelmed with tears. She was almost broken-hearted when she asked
herself whether she had in truth been cruel to her mother. But she
knew not how she could have done other than she had done. Her mother
had endeavoured to conquer her by hard usage,--and had failed. But
not the less her heart was very sore. "My dear," said the tailor to
her, "hearts will be sore. As the world goes yet awhile there must be
injustice; and sorrow will follow."

When they had been gone from London about a month the Countess wrote
to her cousin the Earl and told him her wishes. "If you desire to
live there of course there must be an end of it. But if not, you
might let the old place to me. It will not be as if it were gone out
of the family. I will do what I can for the people around me, so that
they may learn not to hate the name of Lovel."

The young lord told her that she should have the use of the house as
long as she pleased,--for her lifetime if it suited her to live there
so long. As for rent,--of course he could take none after all that
had been done for him. But the place should be leased to her so that
she need not fear to be disturbed. When the spring time came, after
the sailing of the vessel which took the tailor and his wife off to
the Antipodes, Lady Lovel travelled down with her maid to Cumberland,
leaving London without a friend to whom she could say adieu. And at
Lovel Grange she took up her abode, amidst the old furniture and the
old pictures, with everything to remind her of the black tragedy of
her youth, when her husband had come to her and had told her, with a
smile upon his lips and scorn in his eye, that she was not his wife,
and that the child which she bore would be a bastard. Over his wicked
word she had at any rate triumphed. Now she was living there in his
house the unquestioned and undoubted Countess Lovel, the mistress of
much of his wealth, while still were living around her those who had
known her when she was banished from her home. There,