MARY,” said Lady Lisgard gravely, when her attendant had closed the door behind her, “I want to have a little serious talk with you to-night.”

“As you please, my Lady,” returned Mistress Forest, in a tone which the other, did not fail to mark: it was a very respectful tone—a more humble one even than she was ordinarily wont to use—but there was a certain deliberation and set resolve about it too, which expressed as decidedly, as though she had used the words: “I am ready to listen, madam; but I know very well what you are going to ask me, and I have made up my mind already to answer 'No.'”

“Mary,” continued my Lady earnestly, but not without a tremor in her kind soft voice, “come and sit here on the sofa beside me, and let us not be mistress and maid tonight, but only friends.”

“Yes, madam;” and Mary's voice trembled too, for this unlooked-for arrangement would place her, she knew, at a disadvantage in the argument which was certainly at hand. “We have known one another many, many years, Mary—more than half our lives—and I don't think we have had a single quarrel yet.”

“Not one, ma'am, not one,” assented the waiting-maid; already, after the manner of her susceptible kind, beginning to cry.

“I can remember you when quite a child, Mary; not fifteen years old; as willing and kind-hearted a girl as the sun ever shone upon; and when I had not a friend in the world, nor even so much as a coin that I could call my own, and when I was weak and sick at heart, having lost all that was dear to me, I remember who it was that tended and caressed me as though I was her own sister.”

“Don't ye, don't ye, my Lady; hush, hush!” cried the weeping Mary. “It was only natural that I should take to a sweet innocent creature cast at our very door by the raging sea. I often dream of that storm o' nights, madam, even now; of the thunder, and the lightning, and the rain; and of the flashes that were not lightning, but signals for help—that, alas! we could not give—from the poor doomed ship. And how father and the other fishermen, and many of the visitors themselves—and among them poor Sir Robert—all crowded down to the Cove, for they could not get nearer to the shore because of the waves; and I was with them, sheltering myself in the brushwood as well as I could, and peering through the branches to see the great white waves lit up for an instant, and then the darkness shutting all things out except the roaring of the storm. I mind it just as though it were but yesterday; and ah! my Lady, shall I ever forget when that one great wave dashed up into the very Cove itself, wetting us all to the skin, and knocking down young Jack West, whom it almost carried back with it in its return, and then the Great Black Spar, which it did carry back, with something white a-clinging to it; when my father cried out: 'O my God, a woman!' and all our hearts seemed stricken with a sudden shoot of pain. Lord! how I cried, for my part, to think that a poor creature should he tossing in that dreadful foam; and when I heard good Sir Robert's voice, clear and loud as a bugle: 'One hundred pounds to the man who brings her ashore, dead or alive!' I do believe I could have run out and kissed him. Ah, my Lady, what a noble gentleman he was; for though he could not have known how dear you were to be to him—you might have been an old woman, for all he could see—how he worked and strove to save you; not by his money alone, for no mÈre gain would have tempted men to do what was done that night, but by risking life and limb. They made a double chain, holding one another's hands, for there was no time to spare for ropes, and went down almost among the breakers, where you were: my father and Sir Robert were the two first men, God bless them!”

Here Mistress Forest paused, interrupted by incipient hysterics, and my Lady herself cried like a child, but not in agony; her tears were tribute to the memory of a gallant deed.

“I mind my father had a black shoulder—a place you could not cover with both your hands—all along of the spar being driven up against him, but they carried it up with you upon it safe into the Cove, and then there was a great cry for us women to come down and help. Ah, how beautiful you looked, my Lady, though we thought you dead, white, and cold, and wet, with your long black hair dripping like sea-weed, and your tender limbs all bruised and bleeding. It must have been a kind band as tied you to the plank, for between your dainty waist and the rough rope there was bound a sailor's jacket.”

My Lady moaned, and held her bands up as though she would say, “Forbear!” but Mistress Forest could not be stayed.

“There was little enough clothes upon you, poor Lady, just a bodice and a petticoat, but round your neck there was hung a charm or two, and perhaps that had some hand in saying you from drowning.”

My Lady looked quickly up; how strange it seemed that the comment passed by Mary Forest upon the locket (and the bundle of letters in their little waterproof case) should have been so exactly what Derrick had pointed out it would be. The coincidence reminded her of the task that lay before her, and of the danger of delaying it.

“Yes, Mary, I indeed owe my life to you and yours, and I am not forgetful of the debt. Your welfare is, and ever will be only second in importance to that of my own children, and it is concerning it that I now wish to speak with you. Your future”——

“You owe me nothing, my dear Lady, that you have not paid again and again, I am sure,” interrupted the waiting-maid hurriedly. “When you rose to that high station, for which it seems to everybody you were born, your hand was always held out to me; through good report and evil report, you have ever stood my friend: it will be a great wrench of my heart, dearest mistress, when I leave your service—as I shall have to do, I fear, very soon.”

“Mary!”

“Yes, my Lady. You see I'm not a young girl now; and it is not everybody who has so good a chance as I have now of—of—settling in life. Service is not inheritance, you know, my Lady, although I am well aware I should never want for nothing”——

“Whether I live or die, Mary,” broke in her mistress eagerly, “I have taken care of that, good friend; and if I should die tomorrow—— But you shall see my will itself, for it lies here.”

She laid her hand upon the desk before her, but Mary checked her with a determined “No, my Lady; no. I was never greedy—with all my faults, you will grant that much, I know—and if I had been like Mrs Welsh, and others of this household I could name—but that I never was a mischief-maker—I might long since have put myself beyond all need of legacies, and you never would have missed it. But Mr Derrick is himself a person of property; a very rich man indeed for one in my condition of life—not that I need be a burden upon any man, thank Heaven, for I have money saved out of my wages—and very handsome they always were—and that great present of good Sir Robert's still untouched: the most generous of gentlemen he was. I am sure, my Lady, nobody felt for you as I did when Sir Robert died; and you have often said how terrible it was to lose a husband; therefore”—here for a moment her excessive volubility flagged for the first time; she paused, and reddened, then added, with the air of a mathematician stating an indisputable corollary—“therefore, you must allow, dear mistress, that to find one—particularly when one comes to my time of life—is not unpleasant, nor a chance to be lightly thrown aside.”

“That depends entirely upon the sort of husband he may be, Mary,” observed my Lady gravely.

“Really, dear madam, with all respect, I think I am the best judge of that,” rejoined the waiting-maid tartly; “although, indeed, I never thought to say such words to you. Sir Richard may have his likes and dislikes, but I am not his slave; nor yet his servant, for the matter of that. While Master Walter, who, saving your presence, everybody knows to be worth a hundred of him, likes Ralph very much.”

A pang shot across my Lady's face, and left it crimson, as though she had received a blow; but the waiting-maid little knew what had brought the colour there, although she felt that she had pained her mistress deeply.

“God forgive me,” cried she penitently, “if my foolish tongue has hurt your feelings, my Lady! I did not mean to say aught against Sir Richard, I am sure. I scarcely knew what I said, for when those are dear to us—as Ralph has grown to be with me, and I don't deny it—are misjudged and wronged, why, then, we are apt to say bitter things. This talk was none of my seeking, my Lady; and although Ralph thinks that you are to blame because of his being forbidden the Hall, and all the rest of it, I have always told him you have never said a word to set me against him; and oh, I am sorry you are doing it now, because what is done cannot be undone, and”——

“Great Heaven! you are not married to this man?” cried my Lady, rising from her seat with agitation.

“O no, my Lady—certainly not, my Lady,” rejoined the waiting-maid with a certain demure dignity. “There has been nothing underhand between us in the matter at all, except, that is, so far as meeting Mr Derrick at the back gate”——

“Did you go out to meet him to-night?” inquired Lady Lisgard sharply, and keeping her eyes fixed steadily upon her attendant's face. “No, madam, I did not.”

“She is speaking truth,” murmured my Lady to herself. “Who, then, could it be whom I saw upon the churchyard path just now?”

“Although,” continued Mrs Forest quietly, “I don't deny that I have often met him after dusk, no other time being permitted to us; but to-day he has gone to town.”

“And you are to write to him thither to give him your final decision as to whether you will become his wife or not.”

“How on earth do you know that, my Lady?” inquired the waiting-maid with a curiosity even beyond her indignation.

“I do know it, dear old friend,” answered Lady Lisgard tenderly, “and it is because of that knowledge that I have sent for you to-night, to strive to persuade you to write 'No,' while there is yet time.”

It was very seldom—not once in a year, perhaps—that Mary Forest was ever out of temper with my Lady; but then such a supreme occasion as the present had never occurred before. Underneath their mÈre superficial relation of mistress and servant, they were more like elder and younger sister; but then even sisters quarrel when the one wants the other—generally under some pretence of mÈre prudence, not to be listened to by a woman of spirit—to give up the man of her choice. The ample countenance of Mistress Forest expressed something more than Decision in the negative; there was an unpleasant smile upon her pale lips, which seemed to say: “If you knew what I know, you would know that you are wasting your breath.” She sat with her plump hands folded before her, like a naughty boy that has been put in the corner, but who does not care—nay, more, who knows that he has got a cracker to put presently under his master's chair, the results of which will make full amends for the inconvenience he at present experiences.

“I will say nothing more, Mary, of the mutual esteem and affection between us two, and of the pain that an eternal parting—such as your marriage with this Mr Derrick would most undoubtedly entail—needs must cost us both. I presume that you have weighed that matter in your mind, and found it—however weighty—insufficient to alter your determination?”

Mary nodded, sharply enough, but it was doubtful if she could have spoken. Already her features had lost their rigidity, as though melted by my Lady's touching tones.

“You have known this person—that is to say, you have met him some dozen times—during a period of less than four months; yet such is his influence over you, that you are prepared to sacrifice for him a friend of thirty years' standing, a comfortable home, and a position in which you are respected by all who know you. If I was speaking to a young girl, Mary, I should not advance these arguments; but you are a—a wise and sensible woman, and yet not of such a mature age that you need despair of finding a suitable partner for the rest of your life.”

Mistress Forest heaved a little sigh of relief, and her cheeks began to tone down to something like their natural crimson; they had been purple with the apprehension of what my Lady might have said upon the subject of age.

“Now, what is it,” pursued my Lady, “which has produced this confidence in an almost entire stranger? Do you know anything of his former life, which may be a guarantee to you for the stability of your future? Have you ever met a single individual who is acquainted with it in any way? For all you know, this man may have been a”——

“My Lady!”

For a moment, the relative position of Mentor and pupil were exchanged; there was a quiet power about the waiting-maid's rebuke, for which an archbishop would have given more than his blessing, if he could only have incorporated it into a “charge.”

“You are right, Mary,” said my Lady frankly; “let us only speak of what is within our own knowledge. Does this man's own conduct, then, give any promise of lasting happiness to the woman who may become his wife? Is he sober?”

“I believe he is fond of a glass, my Lady, as most men are who have no home, or people to look after them. If he had a wife, he would never go to the public-house at all, perhaps—he tells me so himself.”

My Lady smiled faintly.

“Is he industrious and provident, Mary?”

“He has earned his money hardly enough, my Lady, and it seems only natural that he should now spend a little in enjoying himself.”

“But not fling his money to left and right—I use your own words, dear Mary—and treat every chance-companion he comes across to liquor. Do you suppose that at his age he is likely to change habits of this sort?”

“I am not aware, my Lady, that his age is anything against him,” replied the waiting-maid coldly. “He is not so like to run through his money as if he were younger, and particularly when he has got some one to provide for beside himself. And indeed, so far as money goes, he has thousands of pounds; and if all goes well with him—and something has occurred to-day about which he has sent me a line by hand, dear fellow, by which it has been made almost certain that things will go well—he will be a very rich man indeed after a week or two. There is some great race on Epsom Downs”——

“O Mary, how can you talk so cheerfully of money acquired in that way. If it is won to-day, it is lost to-morrow; and even if it were not so, do you know that it is gained from those who can ill afford to lose it, and who, having lost it, often turn to wicked ways?”

“I don't know about that, my Lady, I'm sure,” responded the waiting-maid demurely; “I leave all these things to my betters. But, I suppose, if racing was a crime, Mr Chifney would not be let to have the Abbey Barn—Sir Richard being so very particular—and Master Walter would not for ever be up at the stables. Why, he and Mr Derrick are both together, hand and glove, in this very business—something about a French racer, it is; although, when you and I were at Dijon, my Lady, we never heard of there being such a thing in all France, did we?—so my poor Ralph cannot be so very wicked after all. And please, ma'am, it is no use saying anything more about it, for I have written him that letter already which he was to find in London, and put it in the post.”

“And did you answer 'Yes,' or 'No,' Mary?”

“I answered 'Yes,' my Lady—that I would marry him—and begging your pardon, madam, but I mean to stand to it.”