huge quartos of meaning, vented the
cold query:

'Pray, why did you not come to me, as you were commanded?'

'I was not aware, my lady,' Conning drew up to reply, and performed with
her eyes a lofty rejection of the volume cast at her, and a threat of
several for offensive operations, if need were.

The Countess spoke nearer to what she was implying 'You know I object to
this: it is not the first time.'

'Would your ladyship please to say what your ladyship means?'

In return for this insolent challenge to throw off the mask, the
Countess felt justified in punishing her by being explicit. 'Your
irregularities are not of yesterday,' she said, kindly making use of a
word of double signification still.

'Thank you, my lady.' Conning accepted the word in its blackest meaning.
'I am obliged to you. If your ladyship is to be believed, my character
is not worth much. But I can make distinctions, my lady.'

Something very like an altercation was continued in a sharp, brief
undertone; and then Evan, waking up to the affairs of the hour, heard
Conning say:

'I shall not ask your ladyship to give me a character.'

The Countess answering with pathos: 'It would, indeed, be to give you
one.'

He was astonished that the Countess should burst into tears when Conning
had departed, and yet more so that his effort to console her should
bring a bolt of wrath upon himself.

'Now, Evan, now see what you have done for us-do, and rejoice at it. The
very menials insult us. You heard what that creature said? She can make
distinctions. Oh! I could beat her. They know it: all the servants
know it: I can see it in their faces. I feel it when I pass them. The
insolent wretches treat us as impostors; and this Conning--to defy me!
Oh! it comes of my devotion to you. I am properly chastized. I passed
Rose's maid on the stairs, and her reverence was barely perceptible.'

Evan murmured that he was very sorry, adding, foolishly: 'Do you really
care, Louisa, for what servants think and say?'

The Countess sighed deeply: 'Oh! you are too thickskinned! Your mother
from top to toe! It is too dreadful! What have I done to deserve it? Oh,
Evan, Evan!'

Her head dropped in her lap. There was something ludicrous to Evan
in this excess of grief on account of such a business; but he was
tender-hearted and wrought upon to declare that, whether or not he was
to blame for his mother's intrusion that afternoon, he was ready to do
what he could to mak