rural in manners and she felt abashed by new sounds and ideas from without she hardly knew three words in any language but her own while this divine creature though truly english had apparently whatever she wanted in the italian and french to suit every impression which was considered a great improvement to speech in those days and indeed is by many considered as such in these how very strange it was about the little girl the said to lady in her gay tones i mean that the child the lawyer recommended should just before then have been adopted by yon who are now my neighbor how is she getting on i must come and see her do you still want her asks lady suspiciously oh i should like to have her but yon can t she s mine said the other a drooping manner appeared in the from that moment lady too was in a wretched mood lady all the way home that day the was so charming in every way that she had charmed her gentle how should it be possible that she had failed to charm sir moreover she had awakened a strange thought in s mind as soon as she reached home she rushed to the nursery and there seizing kissed her then holding her at arm she gazed with a piercing into the girl s she sighed deeply abandoned the wondering and hastened away she had seen there not only her husband s traits which she had often beheld before but others of the shade shape and expression which those of her new neighbor then this poor lady perceived the whole of things and asked herself how she could have been such a walking piece of simplicity as not to have thought of this before but she did not stay long herself for her short so overwhelmed was she with misery at the spectacle of herself as an intruder between these to be sure she could not have foreseen such a but that did not lessen her grief the woman who had been both her husband s bliss and his had reappeared free when he was no longer so and she evidently was dying to claim her own in the person of who had meanwhile grown to be to lady almost the only source of each a of noble day s happiness supplying her with something to watch over inspiring her with the sense of and so largely reflecting her husband s nature as almost to deceive her into the pleasant belief that she reflected her own also if there was a single direction in which this devoted and virtuous lady it was in the direction of over when all is said and done and the truth told men seldom show much self sacrifice in their conduct as lords and masters to helpless women bound to them for life and perhaps though i say it with all uncertainty if she had blazed up in his face like a directly he came home she might have helped herself a little but god knows whether this is a true supposition at any rate she did no such thing and waited and prayed that she might never do despite to him who she was bound to admit had always been tender and courteous towards her and hoped that little might never be taken away by degrees the two became friendly and very seldom did a week pass without their seeing something of each other try as she might and dangerous as she assumed the to be lady ont could detect no fault or flaw in her new friend it was obvious that had been the which had drawn the hither and not sir such beauty united with such understanding and brightness had never before known in one of lady her own sex and she tried to think whether she succeeded i do not know that she did not mind the since a woman so rich so fair and with such a command of could not desire to wreck the happiness of so a person as herself the season drew on when it was the custom for families of distinction to go off to the bath and sir persuaded his wife to accompany him thither with everybody of any note was there this year from their own part of england came many that they knew among the rest lord and lady the earl and of sir john the lady the old duke of the bishop of the dean of and other lesser lights of court pulpit and field thither also came the fair whom as soon as saw how much she was sought after by younger men she could not suspect of renewed designs upon sir but the had finer opportunities than ever with for lady was often and even at other times could not honestly hinder an intercourse which gave bright ideas to the child welcomed her new acquaintance with a strange and instinctive readiness that intimated the wonderful of the threads which bind flesh and flesh together at last the crisis came it was by a group of noble an accident and her nurse had gone out one day for an leaving lady alone in doors while she sat gloomily thinking that in all the would contrive to meet the child somewhere and exchange a few tender words with her sir rushed in and informed her that had just had the possible escape from death some workmen were a house to pull it down for when without warning the front wall inclined slowly outward for its fall the nurse and child passing beneath it at the same moment the fall was temporarily arrested by the while in the mean time the had witnessed their imminent danger from the other side of the street springing across she snatched from under the wall and pulled the nurse after her the middle of the way being barely reached before they 