When told that Mrs.Crawford had asked for her Mrs.Tracy sent word that she was engaged, and that if Mrs.Crawford pleased she would give her errand to the girl.
'I have no errand.

I came to call,' was Mrs.Crawford's reply, and she never crossed the threshold of her old home again until the March winds were blowing and there was a little boy in the nursery at the park.
At the last moment the expected nurse had fallen sick, and in his perplexity Mr.Tracy went to the cottage in the lane and begged of Mrs.
Crawford to come and care for his wife.

Mrs.Crawford was very proud, but she was poor, too, and as the price per week which Frank offered her was four times as much as she could earn by sewing, she consented at last and went as nurse to the sick-room, and the baby, Tom, on whose little red face she imprinted many a kiss for the sake of her daughter who was coming home in June, and over whom the shadow of hope and fear was hanging.
Dolly Tracy's growth after it fairly commenced, was very rapid, and when Mrs.Crawford went to her as nurse she had three servants in her employ, besides the coachman, and was imitating Mrs.Atherton to the best of her ability; and when, early in the summer, she received the wedding cards of Edith Hastings, the young lady from Collingwood, who had married a Mr.St.Claire instead of her guardian, she felt that her position was assured, and from that time her progress was onward and upward until the October morning, ten years later, when our story proper opens, and we see her standing upon the piazza of her handsome house, with every sign of wealth and luxury about her person, from the silken robe to the jewels upon her soft, white hands, which once had washed her own dishes, and canned berries in her own kitchen, where she had received Grace Atherton, with her sleeves above her elbows.
There were five servants in the house now, and they ran over and against each other, and quarrelled, and gossipped, and worried her life nearly out of her, until she was sometimes tempted to send them away and do the work herself.

But she was far too great a lady for that.

She dressed in silk and satin every day, and drove in her handsome carriage, with her driver and footman in tall hats and long coats.