'My darling must be a lady,' she used to say.
She would not let me work, though I entreated her with tears in my eyes.
I used to try to deceive her even, but I never could succeed. She loved
me so, my poor mother. She would take my hands in hers and kiss them.
'Such dainty hands, dear,' she would say, 'must not be spoiled.' After a
great deal of trouble and expense, she contrived to get me an engagement
as governess-pupil in a lady's school; there I did receive a good
education. One failing of my mother always filled me with wonder--she
used to fancy that people watched me. 'Has any one spoken to you,
darling?' she would ask. 'Has any stranger seen you?' I used to laugh,
thinking it was parental anxiety; but it has struck me since as strange.
While I was at the ladies' school my father committed the crime for
which I--alas!--am suffering now."
"Will you tell me what the crime was?" requested Lord Arleigh.
A dreary hopelessness, inexpressibly painful to see, came over her face,
and a deep-drawn sigh broke from her lips.
"I will tell you all about it," she said--"would to Heaven that I had
done so before! My mother, many years ago, was in the service of Lady
L'Estrange; she was her maid then.
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