MARY," said Lady Lisgard gravely, when her attendant had closed the door behind her, "I want to have a little serious talk with you to-night." "As you please, my Lady," returned Mistress Forest, in a tone which the other, did not fail to mark: it was a very respectful tone-a more humble one even than she was ordinarily wont to use-but there was a certain deliberation and set resolve about it too, which expressed as decidedly, as though she had used the words: "I am ready to listen, madam; but I know very well what you are going to ask me, and I have made up my mind already to answer 'No.'" "Mary," continued my Lady earnestly, but not without a tremor in her kind soft voice, "come and sit here on the sofa beside me, and let us not be mistress and maid tonight, but only friends."