Mary Gray

her great promotion in

taria Terrace. It is absurd that you should say you have given your consent, papa. How could you possibly have consented when

ilities and cares that you ought to have been free of for years to come. You have even been stunted in your growth, as Lady Anne said.

d comforted Mary. There was a deal

things to me, Mary. I have sent help to your stepmother-an excellent woman, Mrs. Devine, whom I have known for many years. She is very capable. I w

lonely. She had lost her son and her grandson, and she could not endure her nephew or his family. She had only a few old cronies. As a matter of fact, although she had taken a fancy to Ma

ns at the window, and the dressing-table was as gaily and innocently adorned. There was a work-box on a little table, a writing-desk on another; a shelf of books hung on the wall. The room had really been made ready for

getting on without her at Wistaria Terrace. Her breast had an ache for the baby who was used to lie warm against it. Her good arm fe

rbed sleep and the pain of the broken limb. Simmons had come to her in a somewhat hostile frame of mind. She did not hold with picking up gutter-children from no one knew where and se

Her ladyship sent only last night for a roll of grey cashmere. I'm to fit you after your breakfast and make it

an of taste, else she had not been Lady Anne's maid. Lady Anne was more particular about her garments th

ling the gentleness and dexterity with which the woman tri

., which was brevet rank, since Simmons had never married. It would have made a great difference to Mary's com

interviewed his patient in the morning-room, and was passing out through th

r. Carruthers?" she said. "I shall

s. "The friend whose work I was doing at the House of

t you an unexpected patie

hysique than sh

I am going to alter all that. I have taken

stared in spi

quite remarkable man, I consider him. Now, about yourself. I have heard of you, Dr. Carruthers. I have heard that you are a very clever young man a

Samaritan; and I have done a great deal of work since I have been

on't know whether you do it for phi

the young man said

e and pair, even if he can only give them five minutes. Pownall forgot himself with me. I remember his father-a very decent, respectable man who used to grow cabbages. That's nothing against Pownall-creditable to him, I should say. Still, he hadn't time to listen to my symptoms, and he was rude. 'A woman of your age,' he said. I should like to know who told Dr. Pownall my age. A lady has no age. 'It's

yes were dim as he murmured his acknowledgments. It was fame, it was fortune, in those parts

up the big house and look for a slum practice. The children-I have two living-are not very strong, any

ne. "Still, it has turned out well. Will your wife be at

l be del

y Anne's barouche at his door for an hour in the afternoon would be more potent

. Carruthers' house was a corner one with a frontage to three sides. It was a hot summer day, and Jennings wondered disrespectfully what bee the old lady had got in her bonnet. Such a jangling of harness, such a flashing of polis

hen Lady Anne came in, but the old lady prevented her

y Anne's sympathetic questions about the children. That was something in which Mary was interested, in wh

dressed in soft dove-grey. She had a little white muslin folded fichu about her shoulders. She had a wide black hat, with one long white ostrich feather. Her good hand was gloved in delicate grey kid. There was something quaint about her aspect; for that artist, Simmons, had discovered that Mary, for all her fifteen y

le figure, "Kit said nothing of this. I expected to find a rather interesting child of the humb

ere half-gratification. The elder children were already a bit shy of her, the baby's immediate predecessor even murmuring of her as "the yady," and surveying her f

by this lack of perception on the baby's part. "I hate these hideou

m for the grey frock and hat, they were not to be found. There were numbers of things such as Mary had never dreamed of. Lady Anne had provided her with an outfit

by this time had taken Mary under her wing to uphold her against the rest of the

ders, let some people say what they like-that frock you never will see, for gone it has to a poor child that'll maybe find it a co

ers which, if she wore them again, had the power of transporting her back to her kindred and her old estate. The old life was indeed closed to Mary with the disappearanc