Mr.Null hopes you will gain strength.

Is there anything you want ?" "Nothing--thank you." "Perhaps you wish for a new dress ?" "Oh, no!" "You have no complaint to make of the servants ?" "The servants are always kind to me." "I needn't detain you any longer--I have a person coming to speak to me." Carmina had entered the room in doubt and fear.

She left it with strangely-mingled feelings of perplexity and relief.

Her sense of a mysterious change in her aunt had strengthened with every word that Mrs.
Gallilee had said to her.

She had heard of reformatory institutions, and of discreet persons called matrons who managed them.