daughter it was, this
one of his, and how he loved it!

So did old Mrs. Picture, to judge by the illumination of the eyes she
turned up to the girl's young face above her. "How old am I now, my
dear?" said she. "Eighty-one this Christmas." Thereupon said Gwen:--"You
see, papa! Old Mrs. Marrable must have been quite a young woman in Uncle
George's time. She's heaps younger than Mrs. Picture." She again
smoothed the beautiful silver hair, adding:--"It's not unfeelingness,
because Uncle George died years before I was born."

"Killed at Rangoon in twenty-four," said the Earl, with another
semi-sigh. "Poor Georgy!" And then his visit was cut as short as--even
shorter than--his forecast of its duration, for his next words were:--"I
hear someone coming to fetch me. Your mamma is sure to start an hour
before the time. Good-bye, Mrs.... Picture. I hope you are being well
fed and properly attended to." To which the old lady replied:--"I thank
your lordship, indeed I am," in an old-fashioned way that went well with
the silver hair. And Gwen said:--"Dear old parent! Do you think _I_
shan't see to that?" and followed him out of the room.

"She's a nice old soul," said he, in the passage. "I wanted to see what
she was like. But I thought it best to say nothing about the convict."

"Of course not. I'll follow you round before you go, to say good-bye.
You won't start for half an hour." And Gwen returned to the old soul,
who presently said to her--to account to her for knowing how to say "my
lord" and "your lordship"--"When I first married, my husband's great
friend was Lord Pouralot. But I very soon called him Jack." This was a
reminiscence of her interim between her victimisation and loneliness,
which of course her innocence thought of as marriage. But was this early
lordship's really a ladyship, if such a one appeared, we wonder? Very
likely she was only another dupe, like Maisie. Possibly less fortunate,
in one way. For, owing to the high price of women, in the land of
Maisie's destiny, she--poor girl--never knew she was not a good one,
until she found she was not a widow, although her worthless love of a
lifetime was dead.

Oh, the difference Law's sanctions make! For a woman shall be the same
in thought and word and deed through all her sojourn on Earth, yet vary
as saint and sinner with the hall-mark of Lincoln's Inn.

* * * * *

Gwen followed the Earl very shortly, and left old Maisie to dre