Rather than be separated from this object of her fond affections Janet remained in Felise's service and endured her caprices and ill-treatment with that heroic fortitude with which women from time immemorial have borne slight and wrong for love's sake.
"Will Miss Bonnibel marry him, do you think, Lucy?" asked Janet at one of their solemn conclaves.
"I don't know," Lucy answered. "Seems to me the child don't have the least idea of what is going on right afore her eyes. I don't believe she knows that the colonel is a courtin' her! She thinks he is a friend, like, and because he knew her father in the army and talks a good deal about his bravery, she listens to him and never dreams that she has cut Miss Felise out right afore her face."
"And serves her right, too," said Janet, heartily, taking a malicious pleasure in the defeat of her over-bearing mistress; "I, for one, am downright glad that she has cut my lady out of her rich beau! It would be a fine match for Miss Bonnibel since her uncle has left her without a cent."
"I hope she will marry him," said Lucy. "Things isn't going at all to my notion in this house, Janet. Sour looks and impident words is flung around altogether too free in my young lady's hearing. And she getting that shabby that she have got but one decent mourning gown to her back, and I hear nothing said of a new one! As for money I don't believe Mrs. Arnold has given her a single penny since her uncle died; I've seen her little purse and it's quite empty. I'd have put a few of my own savings into it, only I was afraid she might be angry."
"I hope she'll marry Carlyle and queen it over them both," said Janet. "I tell you, Lucy, it was very strange that Mr. Arnold's will wasn't found. I am quite sure he made one—he wouldn't have slighted your young lady intentionally. He loved that pretty little blue-eyed girl as the apple of his eye, and there was small love lost between him and t'other one. 'Twas mysterious the way things turned out at his death, Lucy."
"Aye, it were," assented Lucy; "I heard Miss Bonnibel, myself, tell Mrs. Arnold down at Sea View when she were sick, that her uncle told her he had made a will and provided liberally for her. And Mrs. Arnold laughed at her and pretended that the fever hadn't got out of her head yet. She didn't want to believe there was a will, Janet, she didn't! Now I ask you, Janet, what has become of that there will?"
Janet laughed scornfully and significantly.
"Ah! it's gone where Miss Bonnibel's blue eyes will never shine on it," said she. "It'll never see the light of day again. All that she can do is to marry Colonel Carlyle and get even with them all."
"I wish she would," sighed Lucy; "but I don't believe she will. They said she was in love with a young artist last summer, and that her uncle drove him away—the same young man they laid the murder on, you know."