“She is a good hand, I daresay,” said the charwoman.

“Ah! — she understands what she has to do, — nobody better,” rejoined Leah significantly; “and it is not every one could fill her shoes — not for all the money she gets.”

“That it is not!” was the reply. “I wonder whether the master — ”

The charwoman was going on; but here Leah turned and perceived me, and she instantly gave her companion a nudge.

“Doesn’t she know?” I heard the woman whisper.

Leah shook her head, and the conversation was of course dropped. All I had gathered from it amounted to this, — that there was a mystery