ir she had drawn up under the
lamp.

"How do you think Mrs. Vanderbridge is looking?" she asked abruptly in a
voice, that held a breathless note of suspense. Her nervousness and the
queer look in her face made me stare at her sharply. This was a house, I
was beginning to feel, where everybody, from the mistress down, wanted
to question me. Even the silent maid had found voice for interrogation.

"I think her the loveliest person I've ever seen," I answered after a
moment's hesitation. There couldn't be any harm in telling her how much
I admired her mistress.

"Yes, she is lovely--every one thinks so--and her nature is as sweet as
her face." She was becoming loquacious. "I have never had a lady who was
so sweet and kind. She hasn't always been rich, and that may be the
reason she never seems to grow hard and selfish, the reason she spends
so much of her life thinking of other people. It's been six years now,
ever since her marriage, that I've lived with her, and in all that time
I've never had a cross word from her."

"One can see that. With everything she has she ought to be as happy as
the day is long."

"She ought to be." Her voice dropped, and I saw her glance suspiciously
at the door, which she had closed when she entered. "She ought to be,
but she isn't. I have never seen any one so unhappy as she has been of
late--ever since last summer. I suppose I oughtn't to talk about it, but
I've kept it to myself so long that I feel as if it was killing me. If
she was my own sister, I couldn't be any fonder of her, and yet I have
to see her suffer day after day, and not say a word--not even to her.
She isn't the sort of lady you could speak to about a thing like that."

She broke down, and dropping on the rug at my feet, hid her face in her
hands. It was plain that she was suffering acutely, and while I patted
her shoulder, I thought what a wonderful mistress Mrs. Vanderbridge must
be to have attached a servant to her so strongly.

"You must remember that I am a stranger in the house, that I scarcely
know her, that I've never even seen her husband," I said warningly, for
I've always avoided, as far as possible, the confidences of servants.

"But you look as if you could be trusted." The maid's nerves, as well as
the mistress's, were on edge, I could see. "And she needs somebody who
can help her. She needs a real friend--somebody who will stand by her no
matter what happens."

Again, as in the room downstairs, there