Robinette had a bad night after the jewel exhibition, and a heavy head and aching eyes prompted her to ask Little Cummins to bring her breakfast to her bedroom.

It was touching to see that small person hovering over Robinette: stirring the fire, sweeping the hearth, looping back the curtains, tucking the slippers out of sight, and moving about the room like a mother ministering to an ailing child. Finally she staggered in with the heavy breakfast tray that she had carried through long halls and up the stairs, and put it on the table by the bed.

"There's a new-laid egg, ma'am, that cook 'ad for the mistress, but I thought you needed it more; an' I brewed the tea meself, to be sure," she cooed; "an' I've spread the loaf same as you like, an' cut the bread thin, an' 'ere's one o' the roses you allers wears to breakfast; an' wouldn't your erming coat be a comfort, ma'am?"

"Dear Little Cummins! How did you know I needed comfort? How did you guess I was homesick?"

Robinette leaned her head against the housemaid's rough hand, always stained with black spots that would give way to no scrubbing. From morning to night she was in the coal scuttle or the grate or the saucer of black lead, for she did nothing but lay fires, light fires, feed fires, and tidy up after fires, for eight or nine months of the year.

"You mustn't touch me, ma'am; I ain't fit; there's smut on me, an' hashes, this time o' day," said Little Cummins.

"I don't care. I like you better with ashes than lots of people without. You mustn't stay in the coal scuttle all your life, Little Cummins; you must be my chambermaid some of these days when we can get a good substitute for Mrs. de Tracy. Would you like that, if the mistress will let you go?"

Little Cummins put her apron up to her eyes, and from its depths came inarticulate bursts of gratitude and joy. Then peeping from it just enough to see the way to the door, she ran out like a hare and secluded herself in the empty linen-room until she was sufficiently herself to join the other servants.

Robinette finished her breakfast and dressed. She had lacked courage to meet the family party, although she longed for a talk with Mark Lavendar. It was entirely normal, feminine, and according to all law, human and divine, but it appealed also to her sense of humour, that she should feel that this new man-friend could straighten out all the difficulties in the path. She waited patiently at her window until she saw him walk around the corner of the house, under the cedars, and up the twisting path, his head bent and bare, his hands in his pockets. Then she flung her blue cape over her shoulders and followed him.

"Mr. Lavendar," she called, as she caught up with his slow step, "you said you would advise me a little. Let us sit on this bench a moment and find out how we can untangle all the knots into which Aunt de Tracy tied us yesterday. I am so afraid of her that I am sure I spoke timidly and respectfully to her at first; but perhaps I showed more feeling at the end than I should. I am willing to apologize to her for any lack of courtesy, but I don't see how I can retract anything I said."

"It is hard for you," Lavendar replied, "because you have a natural affection for your mother's old nurse; and Mrs. de Tracy, I begin to believe, is more than indifferent to her. She has some active dislike, perhaps, the source of which is unknown to us."

"But she is so unjust!" cried Robinette. "I never heard of an Irish landlord in a novel who would practice such a piece of eviction. If I must stand by and see it done, then I shall assert my right to provide for Nurse and move her into a new dwelling. After you left the drawing room last night, I begged as tactfully as I could that Aunt de Tracy would sell me some of the jewels, so that she need not part with the land at Wittisham. She was very angry, and wouldn't hear of it. Then I proposed buying the plum-tree cottage, that it might be kept in the family, and she was furious at my audacity. Perhaps the Admiral's niece is _not_ in the family."

"She cannot endure anything like patronage, or even an assumption of equality," said Lavendar. "You must be careful there."

"Should I be likely to patronize?" asked Robinette reproachfully.

"No; but your acquaintance with your aunt is a very brief one, and she is an extraordinary character; hard to understand. You may easily stumble on a prejudice of hers at every step."

"I shouldn't like to understand her any better than I do now," and Robinette pushed back her............