"We all like Joyce, my lady." A few more questions, and then the girl was told to come again in the evening for her answer.

Miss Carlyle went to the Grove for the "ins and outs" of the affair, where Mrs.Hare frankly stated that she had nothing to urge against Wilson, save her hasty manner of leaving, and believed the chief blame to be due to Barbara.

Wilson, therefore, was engaged, and was to enter upon her new service the following morning.
In the afternoon succeeding to it, Isabel was lying on the sofa in her bedroom, asleep, as was supposed.

In point of fact, she was in that state, half asleep, half wakeful delirium, which those who suffer from weakness and fever know only too well.

Suddenly she was aroused from it by hearing her own name mentioned in the adjoining room, where sat Joyce and Wilson, the latter holding the sleeping infant on her knee, the former sewing, the door between the rooms being ajar.
"How ill she does look," observed Wilson.
"Who ?" asked Joyce.
"Her ladyship.