er a while, my lady set us two to play at chess, a
game which I had lately learnt at Mr. Gray's suggestion. Still we did
not talk much together, though we were becoming attracted towards each
other, I fancy.

"You will play well," said she. "You have only learnt about six months,
have you? And yet you can nearly beat me, who have been at it as many
years."

"I began to learn last November. I remember Mr. Gray's bringing me
'Philidor on Chess,' one very foggy, dismal day."

What made her look up so suddenly, with bright inquiry in her eyes? What
made her silent for a moment as if in thought, and then go on with
something, I know not what, in quite an altered tone?

My lady and Miss Galindo went on talking, while I sat thinking. I heard
Captain James's name mentioned pretty frequently; and at last my lady put
down her work, and said, almost with tears in her eyes:

"I could not--I cannot believe it. He must be aware she is a schismatic;
a baker's daughter; and he is a gentleman by virtue and feeling, as well
as by his profession, though his manners may be at times a little rough.
My dear Miss Galindo, what will this world come to?"

Miss Galindo might possibly be aware of her own share in bringing the
world to the pass which now dismayed my lady,--for of course, though all
was now over and forgiven, yet Miss, Bessy's being received into a
respectable maiden lady's house, was one of the portents as to the
world's future which alarmed her ladyship; and Miss Galindo knew
this,--but, at any rate, she had too lately been forgiven herself not to
plead for mercy for the next offender against my lady's delicate sense of
fitness and propriety,--so she replied:

"Indeed, my lady, I have long left off trying to conjecture what makes
Jack fancy Gill, or Gill Jack. It's best to sit down quiet under the
belief that marriages are made for us, somewhere out of this world, and
out of the range of this world's reason and laws. I'm not so sure that I
should settle it down that they were made in heaven; t'other place seems
to me as likely a workshop; but at any rate, I've given up troubling my
head as to why they take place. Captain James is a gentleman; I make no
doubt of that ever since I saw him stop to pick up old Goody Blake (when
she tumbled down on the slide last winter) and then swear at a little lad
who was laughing at her, and cuff him till he tumbled down crying; but we
must have bread somehow, and though I like i