"Yes, my lady," answered the domestic: "her name is Lydia Hutchinson."
And the servant withdrew.
"Lydia Hutchinson!" murmured Lady Ravensworth, turning deadly pale, and tottering to a seat.
"Are you unwell, Adeline?" inquired Lady Rossville, approaching her daughter.
"No—a sudden indisposition—it is nothing!" replied Adeline; and she hastened from the room.
CHAPTER CCVI.
THE PATRICIAN LADY AND THE UNFORTUNATE
WOMAN.
Lady Ravensworth retired to her boudoir; and, throwing herself upon a voluptuous ottoman, she burst into a flood of tears.
The wife of one of England's wealthiest nobles,—mistress of a splendid mansion and numerous household,—young, beautiful, and admired,—with a coronet upon her brow, and all the luxuries and pleasures of the world at her command,—this haughty and high-born lady now trembled at the idea—now shrunk from the thought—of meeting an obscure young woman who was forced to accept a menial place in order to earn her daily bread!
It was a strange coincidence that thus brought Lydia Hutchinson beneath the roof of Lady Ravensworth, whom the young woman was very far from suspecting to be that same Adeline Enfield who had been her companion—nay, her tutoress—in the initiative of wantonness and dishonour.
Mrs. Chichester had manifested a sisterly kindness towards the unfortunate Lydia; and, instead of shrinking in disgust, as so many others would have done, from the young woman who had been urged by stern necessity to ply a loathsome trade, she had endeavoured, by the most delicate attentions, to reclaim the mind of society's outcast from the dark ocean of despair in which it was so profoundly plunged.