n.--Yes, Mrs. Rolland
was in my service before she became the Countess's maid. She was a
perfectly trustworthy person, with one defect that obliged me to send
her away--a sullen temper which led to perpetual complaints of her in
the servants' hall. Would you like to see her?'

Agnes accepted the proposal, in the faint hope of getting some
information for the courier's wife. The complete defeat of every
attempt to trace the lost man had been accepted as final by Mrs.
Ferrari. She had deliberately arrayed herself in widow's mourning; and
was earning her livelihood in an employment which the unwearied
kindness of Agnes had procured for her in London. The last chance of
penetrating the mystery of Ferrari's disappearance seemed to rest now
on what Ferrari's former fellow-servant might be able to tell. With
highly-wrought expectations, Agnes followed her friend into the room in
which Mrs. Rolland was waiting.

A tall bony woman, in the autumn of life, with sunken eyes and
iron-grey hair, rose stiffly from her chair, and saluted the ladies
with stern submission as they opened the door. A person of unblemished
character, evidently--but not without visible drawbacks. Big bushy
eyebrows, an awfully deep and solemn voice, a harsh unbending manner, a
complete absence in her figure of the undulating lines characteristic
of the sex, presented Virtue in this excellent person under its least
alluring aspect. Strangers, on a first introduction to her, were
accustomed to wonder why she was not a man.

'Are you pretty well, Mrs. Rolland?'

'I am as well as I can expect to be, my lady, at my time of life.'

'Is there anything I can do for you?'

'Your ladyship can do me a great favour, if you will please speak to my
character while I was in your service. I am offered a place, to wait
on an invalid lady who has lately come to live in this neighbourhood.'

'Ah, yes--I have heard of her. A Mrs. Carbury, with a very pretty
niece I am told. But, Mrs. Rolland, you left my service some time ago.
Mrs. Carbury will surely expect you to refer to the last mistress by
whom you were employed.'

A flash of virtuous indignation irradiated Mrs. Rolland's sunken eyes.
She coughed before she answered, as if her 'last mistress' stuck in her
throat.

'I have explained to Mrs. Carbury, my lady, that the person I last
served--I really cannot give her her title in your ladyship's
presence!--has left England for America. Mrs. Carbury knows that I
quit