She stopped speaking and twisted her hands,
“Someone else new was the youngest housemaid, who was allotted to look after me. Because Emily was a pretty attractive girl and rather nervous, I talked to her and she told me that she had only just arrived in the house and had been brought there by Henry, as they came from the same village.
“The next morning, when she was dressing me, Emily told me secretly, as if she could not bear to keep it any longer to herself, that she and Henry were engaged.
“‘I’m ever so happy, miss,’ she said, ‘except that her Ladyship seems to have taken a dislike to me. I’ve a feeling that I shan’t be allowed to stay here.’
“I was sorry for the young girl,” Janeta went on, “because I knew only too well that, if my stepmother had taken a dislike to her, she was doo
