little girls were left motherless. After a while
they used to come and see her in their little black frocks, for they
liked her as well or better than their own mother---that's true.
They used to call her "little mamma." These children made her a shade
livelier, but she was not the girl she had been--I could see that--and
she grew thinner a good deal. Well, my lord got to ask the Swancourts
oftener and oftener to dinner--nobody else of his acquaintance--and at
last the vicar's family were backwards and forwards at all hours of the
day. Well, people say that the little girls asked their father to let
Miss Elfride come and live with them, and that he said perhaps he would
if they were good children. However, the time went on, and one day I
said, "Miss Elfride, you don't look so well as you used to; and though
nobody else seems to notice it I do." She laughed a little, and said, "I
shall live to be married yet, as you told me."

'"Shall you, miss? I am glad to hear that," I said.

'"Whom do you think I