: The Lady of the Forest: A Story for Girls by Meade L T - Conduct of life Juvenile fiction; Children Conduct of life Juvenile fiction; Children Death Juvenile fiction; Cousins Juvenile fiction; Household employees Juvenile fiction; Temper Juvenile fiction;

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nd. The best doctors in Melbourne have examined him and do not believe he will live to manhood. His mother comes of an unhealthy family, and the boy takes after her physically--not mentally, thank God!"

"Poor little Phil! He has a wonderfully sweet face."

"He has the bravest nature I ever met. My boy and girls would almost die for Phil. The fact is, all this is most complicated and difficult, and much of the mischief would have been avoided if only that wretched sister-in-law of mine had been above-board."

"Yes," answered Mrs. Lovel; "but even her stealing a march on you does not give you back the tankard nor the letter."

"True; and I don't suppose even she could have stolen them. Well, Rachel, we must all hope for the best."

"If there is a thing that worries me," said Nancy White to herself--"if there is a thing that keeps coming and coming into my dreams and getting that fantastic and that queer in shape--one time being big enough to hold quarts and quarts of water, and another time so small that you'd think it would melt before your very eyes--it's this wretched silver can. It's in my mind all day long and it's in my dreams all night long. There! I wonder if the bit of a thing is bright enough now."

As Nancy spoke to herself she rubbed and polished and turned round and round and tenderly dusted the lost tankard of the house of Lovel until it really shone like a mirror.

"It takes a deal of trouble, and I'm sure it isn't worth it," she said to herself. "I just kept it more out of a bit of mischief than anything else in the beginning; but it just seems to me now as if I hated it, and yet I couldn't part with it. I believe it's a bit of a haunted thing, or it wouldn't come into my dreams after this fashion."

Nancy kept the tankard up in her bedroom. After giving it a last fond rub and looking at it queerly with an expression half of admiration, half of fear, she locked it up in a little cupboard in the wall and tripped downstairs to attend to her mistress' comforts.

Mrs. Lovel kept no secrets from her old servant, and Nancy knew about her mistress' adventures in London and her unexpected meeting with the friend of her early days, Rupert Lovel. Still, Nancy had a shrewd suspicion that not quite all was told her; she had a kind of idea that there was something in the background.

"It comes over me," she said to herself--"it comes over me that unless I, Nancy White, am as sharp as sharp and as cunning as cunning, my missus and my young ladies will be done. What is it that the missus is keeping in the back of her head to make her look that dreamy, and that wistful, and that despairing, and yet that hopeful? My word, if I haven't seen her smile as if she was almost glad once or twice. Poor dear! maybe she knows as that little delicate chap can't be the heir; and as to the others--the old gentleman and the fine young lad from the other side of the earth--why, if they have a claim to make, why don't they make it? And if they don't make it, then, say I, it's because they can't. Well, now, anything is better than suspense, and I'll question my missus on that very point straight away."

Accordingly, when Nancy had arranged the tea-tray in the most tempting position and stirred the fire into the cheeriest blaze, she knelt down before it and began to make some crisp and delicious toast. Nancy knew that Mrs. Lovel had a weakness for the toast she made, and she also knew that such an employment was very favorable to confidential conversation.

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