What is it ?" It was no easy matter to disconcert Lady Janet Roy.

But that last question fairly reduced her to silence.

After all that had passed, there sat her young companion, innocent of the faintest suspicion of the subject that was to be discussed between them! "What are the young women of the present time made of ?" thought the old lady, utterly at a loss to know what to say next.

Mercy waited, on her side, with an impenetrable patience which only aggravated the difficulties of the position.

The silence was fast threatening to bring the interview to a sudden and untimely end, when the door from the library opened, and a man-servant, bearing a little silver salver, entered the room.
Lady Janet's rising sense of annoyance instantly seized on the servant as a victim.