'What creature?'

'The woman, you know.'

'What woman? Do you mean Mrs. Jose?'

'Mrs. Jose! Oh, dear no. She is not a creature or a woman, but a distant relative—very distant—of ours. I mean that individual, person, nurse—whatever she was, who looked after you in your childhood.'

'Oh! My mother!'

'Well, yes, that worthy being whom you have been accustomed to so designate. Ancient domestics of that description are estimable, and, up to a certain point, useful; but beyond that point are liable to become insufferable nuisances. It is so difficult to get them to realise what is their proper place. They want the delicacy of intuition which should show them when to fall into the rear because no longer wanted. They are given to presume and become intolerable. It was high time for you to dissociate yourself from an individual of this description. You must excuse my frankness, but association with such a personale has already infected your intonation. In a few years it would have been hopeless to have attempted to eradicate it. Happily, at your years, the vocal organs are still flexible and the ear has not been deformed. Yet dialect is not to be got rid of as easily as an unbecoming and unfashionable suit of clothes. We shall have to exert every effort on our part, meeting with response from you, to master this defect. What was the name of that woman?'

Winefred's face became crimson. She moved uneasily on the seat. All her pleasure in the drive and at the novelty of the scenes was gone. Jesse, sitting opposite, misinterpreted her distress and attributed it to the references made by her mother to Winefred's provincial dialect and unfashionable gown. But such reflections in no way wounded the girl. That which troubled her was the slighting reference to her mother. She would have burst forth in vindication of one who was inexpressibly dear to her, but was restrained by recollection of the urgency of her mother, and of Mrs. Jose, not to allow herself to be drawn into a revelation of the true connection that existed between them. She was quite aware of the delicacy and difficulty of her situation. She passed under one name, her mother under another, and the circumstances were too obscure for her to be able to explain how this was.

Happily the current of Mrs. Tomkin-Jones's thoughts was diverted. She turned to Winefred and said with solemnity, 'We are now approaching—look on the right. You will see a chemist's establishment with the Royal arms above the shop window, and the inscription accompanying it, "By Royal Appointment." It was there that the celebrated pill——'

'I thought as much,' said Jesse, interrupting her mother, 'the bread pills were certain to be rolled forth.'

'Bread pills, my dear!' exclaimed Mrs. Jones indignantly; 'your lamented father was not the man to prescribe bread to Royalty. I do not relish this tone. Had it not been for professional rivalry, your father would have had a baronetcy conferred on him, and I should have been Lady Tomkin-Jones. The pills did it.'