fact that she had begged her hostess to allow the doctor who attended Lord and Lady Fermor to come and set the bone and take her home in his brougham, in order to spare her grandmother the shock of hearing of the accident before she knew it was nothing, and that Iris was safe back in her room at Lambford.

A painful accident occurred in the butler's pantry at Lambford; an unlucky footman in drawing the cork of a soda-water bottle wrenched off the neck and cut his hand severely. Everybody called out a remedy, but nobody from the butler to Lady Fermor could bring himself or herself to look at the wound or touch it. Then Iris ran in from the garden, bound up the gash, kept the bandage in its place, gave brandy to the man when he grew faint, and stayed to help the doctor after he arrived in time to take up the severed artery, because no one else had sufficient nerve to make him or her willing to become the medical man's assistant.

Lady Fermor was very angry when she knew what had taken place, and said if she had been aware of the disgraceful chickenheartedness of every soul about the place, she would have ordered each and all, on pain of

instant dismissal with a month's wages, to stand beside the doctor and prevent Miss Compton's being taken advantage of and put to such uses.

In spite of her ladyship's indignation, from that date, whenever a misadventure happened in the household, the sufferer was sure to make a secret humble application for help to Iris, though the girl protested laughingly her inexperience, and the absence on her part even of any intention of being trained for a

nurse.

While things often went wrong at Lambford and in the world, Iris was as sure as she was of her own existence, that there was a Ruler over all Who ordered things aright, and brought good out of evil, and light out of darkness. She believed He had work for her to do in His world, and would show her more and more clearly what it was, if she waited for Him and did the least thing her hand found to do, with all her might, for the good of herself and her neighbours, to His praise. And when this scene of blessing and tribulation was ended, there remained the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelt righteousness and the Lord of righteousness.

Iris on the whole was a happy girl, as who should be if she were not? She was kept ignorant, as those nearest the sinner often are, of the worst of the iniquities of the past at Lambford. Still she heard and saw much to distress her, but while she shrank from further enlightenment, the wrong-doing fell away from her as something entirely foreign to her nature and history. She was very sorry sometimes. She could not fail to be grieved and shocked, but it was not for her to judge and condemn those who were far older than herself, her natural superiors. She had an inextinguishable spring of hope in these years. She was always hoping the best. This was especially true of the wound dealt to her affections by the knowledge that neither her poor old grandfather in his great infirmity, nor her grandmother in the possession of all her powers of mind, but bending under the heavy burden of an aged body, cared much for her. It was well for Iris that she did not make much of herself; that she could trust, however vainly, that she might yet win greater confidence and regard from those before whom the treasures of a noble and gentle nature were like pearls cast under the

feet of swine, which only cause the brutes to turn and rend the giver.

Iris walked in the light of her innocence and rectitude in the love and fear of God, and in the honour of all men, unhurt by her harmful surroundings, one of the strange, sweet, incontestable answers to the carping, doubting question, 'Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?'

CHAPTER VII.

BY LADY THWAITE'S WORK-TABLE.

THERE are women one of the principal objects of whose lives consists in providing themselves with fine feathers, and in pluming the feathers after the wearers have got them. There are other women among whose chief aims is that of lining their nests luxuriously and agreeably, and displaying to envious neighbours those well-furnished nests. Not unfrequently these moods show themselves in the same women, and rather mark different stages of development than contrast of inclination in one person.

Lady Thwaite had married a man old enough to be her grandfather, without entertaining for him any of the sentiments of respect, gratitude, or pity, which could by the wildest flight of fancy have stood for parallel sympathies and mutual inclinations.