"Come in, Yates, and sit down. You are trembling, poor old soul! The world must have gone hard with you when the touch of my hand makes you shiver so. Sit down. We are both old women now, and may rest ourselves together."
So the woman, whose last home had been a convict's cell, and the lady whose head had always been sheltered beneath the roofs of a palace, sat down and looked, with sad timidity, at each other. Still the feeling of caste was strong in the servant. She had drawn an ottoman up to the couch, and placed herself on that; but not until she had taken the shawl from the carpet, and placed it around her mistress, did she thus sit down, as it were, at her feet.
"Where did you come from, Hannah Yates?"
"From America. I came from the ship three days ago."
At the word America the old countess shrank back, and held out her hands, as if to avoid a blow. After a little she spoke again, but it was now with a voice sharp with pain.
"Yates, did you in America ever know anything of my child?"
The anguish in that voice startled Hannah Yates, and her old face whitened. How much did the mistress know? If little, perfect candor might kill her. She had not come there to wound an old woman with the horrors that had darkened her life; so she answered, cautiously:
"Yes, I saw Lady Hope more than once after she came to America."
"Thank God!" exclaimed the countess. "I may now learn how and when she died."
"I was not with her when she died," answered the servant, in a low voice.