'Has any stranger seen you ?' I used to laugh, thinking it was parental anxiety; but it has struck me since as strange.
While I was at the ladies' school my father committed the crime for which I--alas!--am suffering now." "Will you tell me what the crime was ?" requested Lord Arleigh.
A dreary hopelessness, inexpressibly painful to see, came over her face, and a deep-drawn sigh broke from her lips.
"I will tell you all about it," she said--"would to Heaven that I had done so before! My mother, many years ago, was in the service of Lady L'Estrange; she was her maid then.

Miss L'Estrange married the Duke of Hazlewood, and, when my mother was in great difficulties, she went to the duchess to ask for employment.

The duchess was always kind," continued Madaline, "and she grew interested in my mother.

She came to see her, and I was at home.

She told me afterward that when she first saw me she conceived a liking for me.