'Don't be down-hearted, Master Henry,' whispered the old woman, with the unscrupulous common sense of persons in the lower rank of life.

'Try her again, when you come back!' Left alone for a few moments, Agnes took a turn in the room, trying to compose herself.

She paused before a little water-colour drawing on the wall, which had belonged to her mother: it was her own portrait when she was a child.

'How much happier we should be,' she thought to herself sadly, 'if we never grew up!' The courier's wife was shown in--a little meek melancholy woman, with white eyelashes, and watery eyes, who curtseyed deferentially and was troubled with a small chronic cough.

Agnes shook hands with her kindly.