She sat down in the chair, to which Lady Janet silently pointed, with a thump; she returned Lady Janet's grave bow with a nod and a smile.

Every movement and every look of the little, worn, white-faced, shabbily dressed woman expressed insolent triumph, and said, as if in words, "My turn has come!" "I am glad to wait on your ladyship," she began, without giving Lady Janet an opportunity of speaking first.

"Indeed, I should have felt it my duty to request an interview, if you had not sent your maid to invite me up here." "You would have felt it your duty to request an interview ?" Lady Janet repeated, very quietly.

"Why ?" The tone in which that one last word was spoken embarrassed Grace at the outset.

It established as great a distance between Lady Janet and herself as if she had been lifted in her chair and conveyed bodily to the other end of the room.
"I am surprised that your ladyship should not understand me," she said, struggling to conceal her confusion.