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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Girl in Spring-Time, by Jessie Mansergh
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Girl in Spring-Time
+
+Author: Jessie Mansergh
+
+Illustrator: Gertrude Demain Hammond
+
+Release Date: July 27, 2011 [EBook #36874]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A GIRL IN SPRING-TIME ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+A Girl in Spring-Time
+By Jessie Mansergh
+Illustrations by Gertrude Demain Hammond
+Published by Blackie and Son Limited, London.
+This edition dated 1897.
+A Girl in Spring-Time, by Jessie Mansergh.
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+
+________________________________________________________________________
+A GIRL IN SPRING-TIME, BY JESSIE MANSERGH.
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+THE DAY BEFORE THE HOLIDAYS.
+
+It was the day before the midsummer holidays, and the girls of the first
+form were sitting together in the upstairs school-room at Milvern House,
+discussing the events of the term, and the prospective pleasures of the
+next few weeks.  Lessons had been finished in the morning, the afternoon
+had been given up to packing, and now they were enjoying a delightfully
+unsupervised hour of rest.
+
+A tall, slim girl was standing by the table, turning out the contents of
+a desk, and filling the waste-paper basket with fragments of paper.  The
+other pupils watched the movements of the small hands, and the sleek,
+dark head with unconscious fascination.  There was something
+delightfully trim and dainty about Bertha Faucit.  Her hair was always
+neat, her actions deliberate and graceful; she reminded one irresistibly
+of a sleek, well-nurtured pigeon pluming its wings in the sunshine, with
+a very happy sense of its own importance.
+
+By the window stood another girl, who was evidently a sister, for she
+wore a dress of the same pattern, and held herself with a like air of
+dignified composure.  Bertha and Lois Faucit were the daughters of a
+dean who lived in an old cathedral town, and their school-fellows were
+accustomed to account for every peculiarity on this score.  "Dean's
+daughters, you know!"  It was ridiculous to expect that the children of
+such a dignitary would indulge in pillow-fights, and bedroom supper,
+like ordinary frivolous mortals.
+
+Bertha was talking all the while she worked, dropping out her words with
+the same delicate distinctness which characterised her actions.
+
+"Picnics?  Oh, dear me, yes!  We have a picnic almost every week.  We
+take the pony carriage and carry our own provisions, and make a fire of
+sticks.  Have you ever tried to boil a kettle in the open air?  It is a
+terrible experience.  First of all the wood is so damp that it won't
+light, and you get all smoked and dirty; then when it does begin to
+burn, and you put the kettle on the top, the whole thing collapses to
+the ground, and you have to begin again from the beginning.  You prop it
+up with stones, and get everything started for the second time, and then
+the others come back from laying the table and say, `What! isn't the
+water boiling yet?  Oh, you don't know how to light a fire!  It is not
+properly laid.  Let me show you!' and down comes the whole thing again.
+At the end of an hour the kettle boils, and the water is smoked!  We
+always use it to wash our hands, and drink milk instead.  This year I
+intend to use fire-lighters."
+
+"We have a proper tea-basket for taking about with us," said one of the
+other girls.  "The kettle hangs over a lamp which is protected from the
+draught, and you can have boiling water in ten minutes without any
+trouble.  We always take it when we go on the river.  I like boating
+picnics best of any."
+
+"We go to the sea-side for the whole of the holidays," said Ella Bennet,
+a big girl with rosy cheeks and long, brown hair; "Mother thinks the
+bathing does us so much good.  I learnt to swim last year.  An old
+fisherman rowed out in a boat.  I had a strap fastened round my waist,
+and he held me up with a pole while I went puffing round and round.  He
+tried to teach me to dive as well, but I was too nervous.  One day I
+vowed I really would try.  I climbed on to the edge of the boat six
+times over, while he held me, and showed me how to put out my hands, and
+each time I began to squeal, and jumped down again at the last moment.
+It was band day, so there were hundreds of people sitting on the shore,
+and they roared with laughter.  I was ashamed to come out of the van."
+
+"I don't care about the sea-side.  I like the country," said another
+girl.  "Last year we stayed at an old farmhouse in Derbyshire.  The
+walls are of oak, and there are secret cupboards on the stairs.  There
+is a legend that on moonlight nights one of the rooms is haunted by a
+lady in white, who comes and sits by an old spinning-wheel.  One evening
+I dressed up in a sheet, powdered my hair, and blacked my eyebrows, then
+I got the landlady to suggest to the others that they should go upstairs
+and look for the ghost.  They came up in a rush, and there I was
+spinning away with my head bent down as solemn as a judge.  They were
+awfully quiet, but the boys crept nearer and nearer, and then pretended
+to faint, and toppled right over me.  Horrid things!  It turned out that
+the silly old woman thought they might be frightened, so she told them
+who it was before they came up.  I was so cross!"
+
+"But they might really have been frightened.  I wouldn't go upstairs to
+see a ghost for a million pounds--not by myself, at least," said Nellie
+Grey, the youngest girl in the form.  "Of course it wouldn't be so bad
+if you had your brothers with you.  Brothers are great teases, but they
+never get frightened themselves, so it is a comfort to have them
+sometimes.  My eldest brother is awfully brave.  He wanted to be a
+sailor, but Father wouldn't let him, so at Christmas he confided in us
+one night that he was going to run away.  He said good-bye, and divided
+his things among us.  I got the paint-box, and Minnie the desk, and Phil
+the books and tool-chest.  Next morning when we came down to breakfast,
+there he was just the same as usual.  He hadn't run away at all.  He
+said it was too cold.  But we wouldn't give the things back.  It's an
+awfully nice paint-box, with a lovely big palette in a drawer
+underneath.  Mildred! how quiet you are!  What are you going to do in
+the holidays?"
+
+The speaker turned to look at a girl who was seated on the edge of the
+table itself, and everyone in the room followed her example with an
+alacrity which showed how pleasant the sight was in their eyes.
+
+Mildred Moore had just passed her fourteenth birthday, but she was so
+big and strong that she looked older than her age.  Her long legs nearly
+reached the floor, her hands were folded in her lap, and she stared
+through the window, lost in happy day-dreams.  Mildred was the beauty of
+the school, and as the love of all that is sweet, and bright, and lovely
+is natural to girlhood, her companions placed her on a pedestal on that
+account, and treated her with special marks of favour.  Eva Murray, who
+was sentimental, was accustomed to declare that Mildred was exactly like
+a Norse princess, and when Blanche Green, who was practical, asked what
+a Norse princess was like, she replied that she had never met one in
+real life, but had seen many in picture galleries, that they always had
+grey eyes and golden hair, and looked strong and kind and fearless, but
+also as if they could be awfully disagreeable if they liked,--which
+settled the question once for all, for everyone agreed that the
+description suited Mildred to a T.
+
+"What am I going to do?" repeated the Norse princess cheerily.  "Why,
+nothing at all in the way you mean.  We never go away, either to the
+country or the sea-side, or have picnics, or parties, or any excitements
+of that kind.  We just stay quietly at home and go on with the usual
+work, but I am with Mother, you know--that's my holiday!  You have never
+seen her, you girls; I wish you had, for she is quite different to other
+peoples' mothers.  She is only twenty years older than I am, to begin
+with, and she is awfully pretty.  She is a tiny little thing, with dark
+eyes, and soft brown hair.  She comes to meet me at the station in a
+sailor hat, and a little blue jacket, looking like a big school-girl
+herself.  I'm so proud of her!  Last time I went home I took her up in
+my arms and carried her across the room.  She kicked like anything and
+said, `You disrespectful child!  How dare you!  Put me down this
+instant!' but she wasn't really angry a bit, and we both tumbled over on
+to the sofa, and laughed till we cried.  We do enjoy ourselves so much
+when we get together--Mother and I.  She is lonely when I am away, poor
+dear, with no one to speak to but the children, so we make up for it in
+the holidays.  I sit up to supper every night, and we have coffee, and
+hot buttered toast, and all sorts of good things that are bad for us,
+and in the daytime we bribe the elder children with pennies to amuse the
+younger ones, so that we may have the room to ourselves, and talk of the
+good times we shall have when my schooling is over, and I go home to
+stay!"
+
+The girls gazed at Mildred as she spoke, with a mingling of envy and
+compassion.  Envy,--because her intense delight in the mere prospect of
+being at home made them conscious of their own selfishness in regarding
+the holidays as a period when parents should occupy themselves in
+providing amusement for their families;--compassion,--because it was
+well known that Mrs Moore was a widow, and so poor that she could not
+afford to leave the country house where she lived with her half-dozen
+noisy youngsters.  Mildred had been sent to a good boarding-school so
+that she might be able to teach her little brother and sisters in due
+time, and the other girls were specially pitiful over this prospect.
+
+Mary Nicoll referred to the subject now with questionable taste.
+
+"But it won't be much fun, Mildred, if you have to teach all day long.
+You won't be able to go about as you like, or have any time free except
+in the evenings.  And fancy having to go over all the wretched old
+lessons again, and to drill tables and dates, and latitudes and
+longitudes into the brains of a lot of stupid children.  It will be
+worse than being at school."
+
+"Our children are not stupid.  They are as sharp as needles, and I don't
+think it will be dull at all.  It will be fun to have the positions
+reversed, and to do none of the work and all the fault-finding.  I shall
+bully them fearfully.  Can't you imagine me--very proper and stiff, hair
+done up--sitting at the head of the table tapping with a lead pencil...
+`At-tention to the board! ...  Shoulders back, young ladies, if you
+please!  Your deportment leaves much to be desired! ...  My dear, good
+child, how can you be so stupid!  You try my patience to the
+uttermost!'"
+
+Mildred accompanied these remarks with contortions of the face and body
+in imitation of the different teachers at Milvern House, and the bursts
+of laughter with which they were greeted showed how real were her powers
+of mimicry.  She joined in the laughter herself, then suddenly breaking
+off, clasped her hands together, and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of
+anticipation.
+
+"This time to-morrow--oh!  I shall be driving home from the station.  We
+shall have passed the village cross, and the almshouses, and turned the
+corner by the farm.  The children will be swarming out of the gate--the
+table will be laid for tea, with a bowl of roses in the middle--oh!--and
+strawberries--oh!--and real, true, thick, country cream.  To-morrow!  I
+can't believe it.  I don't think I ever wanted to go home so badly
+before.  The term from Christmas to midsummer seems so awfully long when
+you don't go away for Easter.  I shan't sleep a wink to-night, I am so
+excited.  I don't think I can lie down at all."
+
+The girls were so absorbed in their conversation that they had not heard
+the door open during Mildred's last speech, and the new comer had thus
+an opportunity of listening undisturbed.  She was a tall, slight young
+lady, with dark hair, and the sweetest brown eyes that were ever seen.
+She wore a black dress, and white collar and cuffs, and looked as if she
+were trying her best to appear old and dignified, and not succeeding so
+well as she would have wished.  This was Miss Margaret, the younger of
+the two lady principals, familiarly known among the girls as "Mardie",
+because she was "such a darling" that it was impossible to address her
+by an ordinary, stiff, school-mistressy title.  This afternoon, however,
+Mardie's eyes were not so serene as usual, and her face clouded over in
+a noticeable manner as she listened to Mildred's rhapsodies.
+
+"Mildred, dear," she said, coming forward and laying her hand on the
+girl's shoulder.  "I want you in my room for a few minutes.  I won't
+keep you long.  There is something--"
+
+"You want to say to me!  Oh, Mardie, I can guess.  I have left my
+slippers in the middle of the floor, and thrown my clothes all over the
+room.  I know--I know quite well, but it's the last day--I can't be prim
+and tidy on the last day.  It's not in human nature!"  Mildred took hold
+of Miss Margaret by the arm, and rubbed her curly head against her
+shoulder in a pretty, kitten-like manner.  "To-morrow morning you will
+be rid of us altogether, and then--"
+
+"But it is not about your room, Mildred.  Come dear--come with me.  I
+really want you."
+
+"I'm ready then!"  The girl slipped lightly to the ground, and turned to
+follow Miss Margaret from the room.  "You make me quite curious, Mardie.
+Whatever can it be?"
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+A GREAT DISAPPOINTMENT.
+
+Miss Margaret's room was on the third floor, and did service both as a
+bedroom and as a sanctum to which its owner could retire in rare moments
+of leisure.  The bed stood in a corner, curtained off from the rest of
+the room; pictures hung on the walls; little bookcases fitted into the
+angles; while before the window was an upholstered seat, so long and
+wide, and luxuriously cushioned, as to make an ideal sofa.  In the
+girls' estimation Mardie's room was a paradise, and it seemed almost
+worth while having a headache, when one could be tucked up warm and cosy
+on that delightful seat, shaded from the sun by the linen blind outside
+the window, yet catching delicious peeps at the garden beneath its
+shelter.
+
+Mildred made straight for the coveted position and leant back against
+the cushions, her hands clasped round her knees in an attitude rather
+comfortable than elegant.  For once, however, Miss Margaret had no
+reproof to offer.  She had nothing to say about the awful consequences
+of curving the back and contracting the chest; she did not even inquire,
+with a lifting of the eyebrows, "My dear Mildred, is that the way in
+which a young lady ought to sit?"  She only gazed at the girl's face and
+wrinkled her brows, as if puzzled how to open the conversation.
+
+"Go on, Mardie, dear?" said her pupil, encouragingly.  "What is it--have
+I done anything wrong?  I don't know what it is, but I'm awfully sorry,
+and I'll never do it any more.  Don't scold me on the last day!  I'll
+promise faithfully--"
+
+"Don't, dear!  It isn't anything like that."  Miss Margaret straightened
+herself with an expression of resolution and went boldly forward.
+"Mildred, are you brave?  Can you bear a great disappointment?"
+
+Mildred raised her eyes with a start of apprehension.  There was a
+moment's silence, during which a curious change came over the girlish
+face.  The colour faded from the cheeks, the eyes hardened, the lips set
+themselves in a thin, straight line.
+
+"No," she said sharply, "I can't!" and Miss Margaret looked at her with
+gentle remonstrance.
+
+"Oh, Mildred, don't take it like that!  I have had to bring other girls
+into this room, dear, and tell them of troubles compared to which this
+disappointment of yours is as nothing--nothing!  Poor little Effie
+Browning, looking forward to her parents' return from abroad, and
+counting the hours to their arrival--I had to show her the telegram
+announcing her mother's death.  And Mabel, and Fanny--But your mother is
+well, quite well and safe.  Doesn't that make you feel thankful to bear
+any lesser trouble?"
+
+"No!" said Mildred again, more obstinately than before; "No!"  She
+stared at Miss Margaret with unflinching eyes.  "If Mother is well,
+there is only one other trouble which I could feel just now.  If--if it
+is anything to prevent me going home, I can't bear it--it will kill me!
+I shall break my heart!"
+
+"Nonsense!  You are far too strong, and brave, and sensible to break
+your heart over a disappointment of a few weeks, however hard it may be
+to face.  Come, Mildred, you know I rely upon you to be my helper in
+difficulties; you must not quarrel with me, for we shall have to keep
+each other company.  Your little brother Robbie has taken scarlet fever,
+and you will not be able--"
+
+She did not finish the sentence, for her pupil interrupted with a cry of
+bitter grief, and buried her face in her hands.  It was one thing to
+imagine a thing, and another to know that it was true in solemn earnest.
+Mildred had spoken of the possibility of not being able to go home as
+of some appalling imaginary calamity, but she had never, never thought
+it could be true.  Not go home!  Stay at school all through the
+holidays!--the prospect was so terrible that it was impossible to
+realise all that it meant.  Nevertheless some of the first miserable
+consequences were clear enough to poor Mildred's mind:--to unpack all
+her boxes, to put her clothes back in drawers and cupboards; to sleep by
+herself in the deserted dormitory; to spend the days lounging about
+empty school-rooms, feeling doubly lonely because of the remembrance of
+the friends who had been by her side but a few days before, and who had
+now dispersed to their own happy homes.  Effie Browning had spent the
+holidays at school once or twice, and Mildred had pitied her so much
+that she had sent weekly letters and boxes of country flowers and
+mosses, to cheer her solitude.  And now she herself was to undergo this
+awful experience!  To-morrow morning the other girls would fasten their
+boxes and drive off to the station, but for her there would be no
+excitement of farewell, no railway journey, with the delightful sense of
+importance in travelling by herself all the way from the junction, no
+dear little mother waiting to greet her in sailor hat and blue serge
+suit!  Her heart swelled with passionate longing, but she could not cry;
+the blow was too sudden, too severe.  Miss Margaret's eyes were wet,
+however, as she looked down at the curly, golden head.  She did not
+speak for a few minutes, then she laid her hand on the girl's arm and
+pressed it to attract attention.
+
+"I am so sorry for you--so sorry, my poor girl.  See, dear, here is a
+letter which came inclosed in one to my sister.  Your mother wished us
+to break the news--"
+
+Mildred seized the letter in an almost savage grasp.  It was in her
+mother's handwriting, and ran as follows:--
+
+  My darling Mildred,
+
+  When you get this letter, Miss Chilton will have told you of the
+  trouble at home.  Poor little Robbie has been very poorly for two
+  days, and this morning the doctor pronounces it to be scarlet fever.
+  I could not help crying when he told me, for so many things came
+  rushing into my head, and it all seemed so dark and difficult.  I was
+  anxious about Robbie, and couldn't think what to do with the rest of
+  the children; and you, my darling, with your holidays just beginning!
+  It broke my heart to think of you.  I seem to have lived a month in
+  the last few hours, but everyone has been so kind, and help has come
+  from all directions.  Mrs Bewley and Mrs Ross are to take the
+  children to stay with them, as they have no little ones of their own,
+  and are not afraid of infection.  I will nurse Robbie, and if any of
+  the others fall ill, they will be sent home at once, and we will make
+  a hospital of the top floor.  I suppose, even if all goes well, and
+  Robbie is the only patient, it will be six weeks before we are out of
+  quarantine.  Oh, my dearest child, I am so grieved for your
+  disappointment, coming upon you in the midst of your preparations; but
+  there is no help for it, you must stay on at school, for there is no
+  other place to which I can send you.  I can't ask either Mrs Bewley
+  or Mrs Ross to take you in addition to the other children, and even
+  if you were here we could not see or speak to each other, and it would
+  be dreadful to know that you were so near, and not be able to be
+  together.
+
+  I am as disappointed as you, can be, dear, for I can't tell you how I
+  was looking forward to having my dear, big girl back again, but this
+  is a trouble which has come to us, and which we cannot help, and we
+  must try to be as brave as possible.  Robbie is very hot and feverish
+  to-day.  He asked when you would be at home, and I was obliged to tell
+  him that you could not come now.  A little time afterwards I went back
+  and found him crying, "'Cause Millie will be angry wif me!"  Poor wee
+  man! if he only gets on well we must not mind any disappointment which
+  his illness has caused.
+
+  I shall not be allowed to send you letters, dear, but please write to
+  me as often and as cheerfully as you can.  We shall be shut off from
+  all our friends, and letters will be eagerly welcomed.  I send you a
+  postal order for a sovereign for pocket-money during the holidays.  It
+  is all I can afford, darling, or you should have ten times as much.
+  You know that.
+
+  I have not another minute to spare, so goodbye, dearie.  I shall think
+  of you every hour of the day.  Help me by being brave!
+
+  Mother.
+
+Mildred read the letter through, folded it away, and looked up at Miss
+Margaret with bright, dry eyes.
+
+"Can I go to my own room, Miss Margaret, please?"
+
+"You can if you like, Mildred, but the other girls will be there in a
+moment, getting ready for tea.  Wouldn't you prefer to stay here?  I
+will give you my writing-case, and you can write to your mother; she
+will be longing to hear.  You shall have tea up here, a nice little
+tray, and Bertha shall have it with you, unless you prefer to be alone."
+
+"I don't want to see anyone.  They are all going home.  It would make me
+feel worse than ever.  They are all happy but me--"
+
+"They will feel your disappointment almost as much as you do yourself.
+We are all so grieved; but I will do my best to make the holidays
+pleasant for you, dear."
+
+"Don't be kind to me, Mardie, please.  I can't bear it--I feel as if I
+hated everyone!  Why need Robbie take ill just now of all times in the
+year?  He is a tiresome little thing.  It is always the same way,--there
+is more trouble with him than with all the five girls.  Why can't Mother
+stay with us and send him away to be nursed?  There are five of us, and
+only one of him.  I wasn't home at Easter, though almost all the girls
+went.  I can't live six whole months longer without seeing Mother.  It
+makes me wild even to think of it!"
+
+"Don't think of it, Mildred.  Six months is a long way ahead; a hundred
+things may happen before then.  Don't worry yourself about months, think
+only of to-day, and try to be bright, and brave, and patient."
+
+"It would be horrid of me to be bright when Mother is in trouble.  I
+can't be brave when everything goes wrong; I can't be patient when my
+heart is breaking."
+
+"It is hard, dear, but there are harder trials than this, which we have
+to bear as we go through life, and you know--"
+
+"Mardie, don't preach!  Don't!  I can't bear it.  How can it make it
+easier to know that other people have worse troubles?  It makes it
+harder, for I have to be sorry for them as well as myself.  It's no use
+trying to reason; you had better leave me alone.  If you say another
+word I--I--I shall--" Mildred's voice broke, she struggled in vain
+against the rising sobs, and burying her face in her hands, burst into a
+storm of bitter weeping.
+
+Miss Margaret did not try to check her, for she knew that tears would be
+a relief, and that after this outburst Mildred would be calmer and more
+reasonable.  She patted her heaving shoulders and murmured caressing
+words from time to time.
+
+"Dear Mildred! poor girl!  I am so sorry,--we are all so sorry for you,
+dear.  You know that--don't you?"
+
+Mildred cried on unrestrainedly, but by and by she nestled nearer to
+Mardie's side, and a few broken phrases began to mingle with her sobs.
+
+"Oh, Mardie, I don't want--to be--so horrid!  I'll try--to be good.--But
+you don't know--how--I feel--inside!  All raging, desperate!  It seems--
+as if--it can't be true.  I was so happy.  It was so--near."
+
+"Yes, dear, yes; but, Mildred, listen to me.  I know that nothing can
+make up for home or Mother, but I am not going away for two or three
+weeks, and we will have some cosey little times together--you and I.
+You shall sleep with me, we will have our meals in the south parlour,
+and we will go little expeditions on our own account, have tea in
+village inns, and botanise in the fields.  The doctor's daughter will be
+at home from school, she shall come and spend the day with you as often
+as you like, and you must help me to pick fruit and make jam.  We will
+get some nice books too, and read aloud in the evenings.  It won't be so
+dreadful--will it, dear?  Come, Mildred, if you cry like this I shall
+think you don't care for me at all."
+
+"Oh, Mardie, I do!  I love you, and I know you will be kind, but
+I'm--_tired_ of school.  I want Mother!  I want Mother!"  And down went
+the curly head once more, and Mildred burst into fresh floods of tears.
+
+It was indeed a sad ending to a day which had dawned with such radiant
+promise.
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+FRIENDS TO THE RESCUE.
+
+There was consternation downstairs when the news of Mildred's
+disappointment was made public.  The girls clustered together in groups,
+and talked with bated breath.  The number of times that the words
+"fearful" and "awful" were used would have horrified Miss Chilton if she
+had been present, and one and all were agreed that their friend was the
+most pitiable creature upon earth.
+
+Even the little sixth-form pupils were full of sympathy, for Mildred
+took more notice of them than any of the "big girls", and even
+condescended, upon occasion, to spend a holiday afternoon helping them
+with their games and "dressings up."  Within ten minutes of hearing the
+news little Nina Behrends had scribbled a note on a leaf of an
+exercise-book, and fitted it into an envelope together with a bulky
+inclosure.  She trotted upstairs and knocked at Miss Margaret's door,
+and when Mildred peered out into the passage with her tear-stained eyes,
+the little mite pressed the package into her hands and scuttled away as
+fast as her legs would carry her.
+
+Mildred opened the envelope with a feeling of bewilderment, which was
+certainly not decreased when she drew forth an aged piece of
+india-rubber, shaggy and frayed at the ends, as with the bites of tiny
+teeth.  She turned to the note for an explanation, which was given in
+the following words:
+
+  Deer Mildred,
+
+  I hope you are quite well.  I send you my injy-ruber.  The thick side
+  rubs out.  I hope it will comfort you that you can't go home.
+
+  So I remain,
+
+  Your little friend,
+
+  Nina.
+
+Poor little Nina!  The "injy-ruber" was one of her greatest treasures,
+and it had seemed to her that no other offering could so fitly express
+her love and pity.
+
+The same impulse visited all the other girls in their turn.  It was not
+enough to sympathise in words, it seemed absolutely necessary to _do_
+something; and before half an hour was over, every girl was rummaging
+through the contents of a newly-tidied desk, in search of some tribute
+which she might send to Mildred in her distress.  Such a curious
+collection of presents as it was!  Pencil boxes (more or less damaged);
+blotted blotters; "happy families" of ducks and rabbits congregated on
+circles of velvet; photograph frames; coloured slate-pencils;--it would
+be difficult to say what was not included in the list, while every gift
+was wrapped in a separate parcel, and offered in terms of tenderest
+affection.
+
+Bertha Faucit was deputed to carry the presentations upstairs, and she
+found Mildred sitting upon the window-seat, gazing out into the garden
+with dreary, tear-stained eyes.  There was nothing in the least like a
+Norse princess about her at this moment.  She looked just what she was--
+a particularly lugubrious, unhappy, English school-girl.  Her face
+lighted up with a gleam of pleasure when she saw her friend, however,
+for she had been alone for nearly an hour, while tea was going on
+downstairs, and was beginning to find the unusual silence oppressive.
+
+"Oh, Mildred!" cried Bertha.  "Oh, Bertha!" cried Mildred; then they
+collapsed into silence, gazing at each other with melancholy eyes.
+
+"I can't--go home!" said Mildred at last, speaking with heaving breath
+and suspicious gaps between the words.  "I have to stay here all the
+holi--days--by myself!  Eight weeks--fifty-six days!  I think I shall go
+mad--I'm sure I shall!  My head feels queer already!"
+
+"That is because you have been crying.  You will be better in the
+morning," said Bertha, and her quiet, matter-of-fact voice sounded
+soothingly in her friend's ears.  "See, Mildred, the girls have sent you
+these little presents to show how sorry they are for your
+disappointment.  We couldn't go out to buy anything new, so you must
+excuse us if they are not quite fresh.  I have brought my crayons,--you
+said the blue was a nicer colour than yours; Lois has chosen two texts
+for illuminating, and there are all sorts of things besides.  See what a
+collection!  Maggie Bruce has sent an exercise-book with the used leaves
+torn out.  She said it was to be used as an album; and when we go home
+we are all going to ask our fathers for foreign stamps, and send them on
+to you.  Don't you want to look at all the other things?"
+
+Bertha had laid the parcels in a row along the floor, and Mildred now
+took up one after another and examined the contents, while at one moment
+she laughed, and at the next her eyes ran over with tears.
+
+"How good of them all--how kind!  Poor little Nina Behrends presented me
+with her `injy-ruber' before tea.  It is so dirty that it would spoil
+anything it touched, but it was sweet of the little thing to think of
+it.  A note from Carrie.  Poor old Elsie--fancy sending me this!  What a
+nice frame; I'll put your photograph in it, Bertha.  Slate-pencils! does
+she think I am going to do sums in the holidays?  Oh, Bertha, don't
+think me horrid, but people seem to me to have a very queer idea of
+comfort!  Miss Margaret sent up strawberry jam and cake for my tea, as
+if anything to _eat_ could make up for not seeing Mother!--or pencils,
+or books, or stamps.  I'd give all the stationery in the world if I
+could only wake up and find it was a dream, and that I was really going
+home!"
+
+"I don't think that is quite the right way to look at it," said Bertha,
+seating herself elegantly on a chair, and speaking in her precise,
+little, grown-up manner.  "We don't expect these things to `make up';
+they are not of much value in themselves, but you must think of their
+meaning, and that is that we all love you, and are sorry for you, and
+want to do everything in our power to help you."
+
+"Yes, yes, I know; you are all angels, and I am a wretch!" cried poor
+Mildred dismally.  "I don't deserve that you should be so kind.  I
+should like to be grateful and patient, but I can't!  Bertha, if you
+were in my place, and had to stay here at school all alone, without even
+Lois or a single one of the girls, what would you do?"
+
+Bertha reflected.
+
+"I think I should cry a good deal at first," she said honestly, "and lie
+awake at nights, and have a headache, but I should try to be resigned.
+I have never had anything very hard to bear, and sometimes I have almost
+wished that I had.  I don't mean, of course, that I want anyone
+belonging to me to fall ill like your brother.  I should like a trouble
+that affected myself alone, so that I might see how well I could bear
+it.  I love to read about people who have had terrible trials, and have
+been brave and heroic, and overcome them all.  I have an ambition to see
+if I could imitate them."
+
+"Well, I haven't," said Mildred, "not a bit; and you won't like it
+either, Bertha, when it comes to your turn!  Besides, I don't see that
+there is much chance of being heroic in living alone by yourself in a
+ladies' school.  Heroes have to fight against armies, and plagues, and
+terrible calamities, and I have to face only dullness and
+disappointment.  Even if I bear them well it will be no more than is
+expected of me. ...  There would be nothing heroic about it!"
+
+Bertha knit her brows in thoughtful fashion.
+
+"I am not so sure," she said.  "I think it must be pretty easy to be
+brave when you are marching with hundreds of other people, while drums
+are beating and flags waving, and you remember that England expects you
+to do your duty, and that the whole world will talk of it to-morrow if
+you do well.  It would be quite easy for you, Mildred; for you are never
+afraid, and you would get so excited that you would hardly know what you
+were doing.  It will be much harder for you to sit still here and be
+cheerful; and to do the hardest thing must be heroic!  I will write to
+you often, Mildred; all the girls will write.  You will have heaps of
+letters."
+
+"That will be nice.  I love letters," said Mildred gratefully.  She
+cheered up a little at the prospect, and talked to her friend for the
+next half-hour without relapsing into tears.  Nevertheless, the
+remembrance of the poor, disfigured face weighed heavily on Bertha's
+heart, and she could talk of nothing else, as she and Lois finished
+their packing later on the same evening.
+
+"I feel quite mean to be going home when poor Mildred is left here
+alone," she said.  "And we have such a happy time.  Father and Mother
+are so good, they give us almost everything we ask in the holidays.  I
+wonder--" She stopped short as if struck with a brilliant idea, and
+stared into her sister's eyes.
+
+"I wonder--" echoed Lois immediately, and her voice had the same ring,
+her face the same curious expression.
+
+The pupils at Milvern House were often amazed at the instinctive manner
+in which these two sisters leapt to an understanding of each other's
+meaning, and the present instance it was evident that Lois needed no
+explanation of that mysterious "I wonder."  "We are twins, you know,"
+they were accustomed to say, when questioned about this peculiarity, and
+it seemed as if this fact did indeed save them from much conversational
+exercise.
+
+"We will see!" said Bertha again, and Lois nodded her head and repeated,
+"We will see!" while her face lit up with smiles.
+
+But Mildred did not know what pleasant schemes her friends were plotting
+on her behalf, and she lay, face downwards, crying heart-brokenly upon
+her bed.
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+BAD NEWS FROM HOME.
+
+The next morning Mildred awoke with a wail of despairing remembrance.
+She hid her face in the pillow and wondered how she was to live through
+the day, to see the different batches of girls leave the house at ten
+o'clock, at eleven, at one, at half a dozen different times, while she
+was left alone in solitary misery.
+
+Her friends, however, were too considerate of her feelings to let her
+experience such a trial.  Immediately after breakfast Miss Chilton
+announced that she was going to spend the day in a neighbouring
+township, and requested Mildred to get ready to accompany her.  Now,
+Miss Chilton was a majestic person, with a Roman nose and hair braided
+smoothly down each side of her face; and none of the girls dared to
+argue concerning her decrees, as they did, on occasion, with the more
+popular Miss Margaret.
+
+So Mildred marched meekly upstairs, to put on hat and jacket, without
+uttering a single protest.  She would have liked to say, "Oh, do leave
+me alone!  I would far rather stay at home and mope;" and Miss Chilton
+probably guessed as much, though she took no notice of her companion's
+downcast expression, and sat with the same unconscious smile upon her
+face all the length of the journey.
+
+She had some shopping to do, in preparation for her own holidays, but
+when that was over, she and her pupil repaired to the house of a friend,
+where they were to lunch and spend the afternoon.
+
+The friend had two daughters about Mildred's own age,--bright, lively
+girls, who carried her away to their own rooms, showed her their
+possessions, confided secret plans, and were altogether so kind and
+friendly that she forgot to be unhappy, and chatted as gaily as they did
+themselves.  Miss Chilton had probably sounded a note of warning in the
+letter which announced her coming, for no one said a word to Mildred on
+the subject of the holidays, but when she was leaving, the mother
+invited her to spend another day with the girls, and the girls
+themselves kissed her with sympathetic effusion.
+
+It was nearly eight o'clock when the travellers reached school again, to
+find the house transformed from its usual bustling aspect.  The
+classrooms were closed, supper was laid in the cosy little south
+parlour, and when Mildred tried to enter the dormitory which she shared
+with two other girls she found that the door was locked, and Miss
+Margaret came smilingly forward to lead the way to her own room.
+
+"I have been as busy as a bee all afternoon.  Come and see how nicely I
+have arranged it all," she said brightly, and Mildred, looking round,
+saw her own chest of drawers in one corner, her dresses hanging neatly
+in the wardrobe, while a narrow bed stood out at right angles from the
+wall.
+
+Her heart swelled at the sight, and a hundred loving, grateful thoughts
+arose in her heart.  She longed to thank Miss Margaret for sparing her
+the painful task of unpacking, and for letting her share this pretty,
+luxurious room, but it seemed as if an iron band were placed round her
+lips, and she could not pronounce the words.
+
+"The bed spoils the look of the room!" she muttered at last, and even in
+her own ears her voice sounded gruff and ungracious; but Miss Margaret
+only smiled, and slipped one arm caressingly round her waist.
+
+"Ah, but I sha'n't think that when I wake in the morning and see my
+little goldilocks lying beside me, with her curls all over the pillow
+like the princess in the fairy tale!" she said, and at that Mildred was
+obliged to laugh too, for she was like most other mortals--marvellously
+susceptible to a touch of flattery!
+
+"A very grumpy princess!" she said penitently.  "I am really awfully
+grateful, Mardie, but I can't show it.  You will excuse me if I am nasty
+for a day or two, won't you, dear?"
+
+Mardie raised her eyebrows and pursed up her lips in comical fashion.
+She was always unusually lively for a school-mistress, but already it
+seemed to Mildred that she was quite a different person from the "Miss
+Margaret" of term time.  She wore a pretty blue dress, with lace
+frillings on the bodice, and walked about with an airy tread, as though
+released from a weight of responsibility.
+
+"Well," she said, nodding her head, and looking as mischievous as a girl
+herself, "I'll make allowances, of course, but I hope you won't try me
+too far.  I am a delightful person out of school time, and mean to enjoy
+every day of the holidays to the full--unless you prevent me I shall be
+dependent upon you!"
+
+"I prevent you,--I!"
+
+That seemed to put the matter in a new light, and Mildred was overcome
+at the thought of her own selfishness.  Whatever she might have to
+suffer, she must not spoil poor Mardie's pleasure in her well-earned
+rest.  That would be inexcusable.  She determined to do her utmost to be
+brave for Mardie's sake.
+
+The next day Miss Chilton departed on her travels, and a letter arrived
+from Mrs Ross giving a serious account of the little invalid's
+condition.  She evidently tried to write as cheerfully as possible, but
+Mildred read anxiety between the lines, and was full of compunction.
+
+She had never imagined that Robbie would be really ill, but had looked
+upon the fever as a childish complaint which would make him hot and red
+for a few days, and put everyone else to inconvenience for as many
+weeks.  She had not only felt, but said, that it was very "tiresome" of
+him to have taken ill at such a time; but now the remembrance of poor
+wee Robbie lying in bed crying, "'Cause Millie would be angry wif him,"
+cut her to the heart.  The day seemed endlessly long and dreary, and the
+next morning's news was worse instead of better.  Robbie's life was in
+danger.  The doctor hoped, however, that a change might take place
+within the next twenty-four hours, and Mrs Ross promised to telegraph
+in the afternoon to allay his sister's anxiety.
+
+Miss Margaret looked very grave, but she said little, and did not
+attempt to follow when Mildred fled upstairs, leaving the letter in her
+hands.  There are times when we all prefer to be alone, and this morning
+Mildred could not have brought herself to speak to anyone in the world
+but her mother.  She lay motionless on the window-seat, her head resting
+on the open sill, the summer breeze stirring the curls on her forehead,
+while the clock in the hall chimed one hour after another, and the
+morning crept slowly away.  For the most part she felt stupefied, as if
+she could not realise all that the tidings meant, but every now and then
+her heart swelled with an intolerable ache.
+
+It was true that Robbie had caused more trouble than his five sisters
+put together, but his exploits had been of an innocent, lovable nature,
+and when the temporary annoyance which they caused was over, she and her
+mother had laughed over them with tender pride.  He was such a manly
+little fellow!  Many a boy would have been spoiled if he had been
+brought up in a household composed exclusively of womenkind, but nothing
+could take the spirit out of Robbie.  He had begun to domineer over his
+sisters while he was still in petticoats, and now that he was promoted
+to sailor suits, he gave himself the airs of the master of the house!
+Mildred recalled the day when he had been discovered standing before a
+mirror, making wild slashes at his curls with a pair of cutting-out
+scissors.  The explanation given was that some boys had dared to call
+him "pitty girl!" and he couldn't "'tand it!"  When his mother shed
+tears of mortification, Robbie hugged her with sympathetic effusion, but
+sturdily refused to say that he was "torry!"
+
+A vision of the little shaggy head rose up before Mildred's eyes: she
+saw the chubby face, the defiant pose of the childish figure, and
+stretching out her hands, sobbed forth a broken prayer.
+
+"Oh, God! you have so many children in Heaven--so many little boys.  We
+have only one...  Don't take Robbie!"
+
+The morning wore away, the blazing sun of noon shone in through the open
+window, Mildred's head throbbed with pain, then gradually everything
+seemed to sink away to an immeasurable distance, and she was lost in
+blessed unconsciousness.
+
+When she awoke the church bell was chiming for afternoon service, and
+Miss Margaret knelt by her side, holding an open telegram in her hand.
+
+"I opened it, darling!" she said; "I thought it would be better.  It is
+good news, Mildred--good news!  Robbie is better.  The doctors think he
+will get well now!"
+
+Ah! that was a happy afternoon!  Mardie took Mildred in her arms and
+kissed and petted her to her heart's content, then the door opened and
+in came old Ellen, the cook, carrying a tea-tray with freshly-made
+scones, a plate of raspberries from the garden, and a jug of thick,
+country cream.  The kind old soul had been so full of sympathy that she
+had insisted upon carrying it up the three flights of stairs herself,
+although her breath was of the shortest, and she gasped and panted in
+alarming fashion.  Mildred laughed and cried in one breath, and lay back
+against the cushions, drinking tea, and eating raspberries in great
+contentment of spirit.
+
+"I was awfully hungry, though I didn't know it.  I feel as if I had been
+ill.  Oh, Mardie, isn't it a lovely feeling when the pain goes, and you
+can just rest and be thankful! ...  It's worse to have a pain in your
+mind than in your body.  I feel ashamed now that I made such a fuss
+about staying at school--it seems such a little thing in comparison, but
+don't say `I told you so!'  Mardie, or that will make me feel horrid
+again.  It really _is_ big, you know, only the other was so much
+bigger...  Mardie, have you ever had a disappointment--as big a
+disappointment as mine?"
+
+A quiver passed over Miss Margaret's face, and for a moment she looked
+very sad.
+
+"Oh, Mildred, yes!" she cried.  "Everyone has, dear, but sometimes I
+have been discontented enough to imagine that I have had more than my
+share.  A disappointment, indeed! dozens,--scores,--hundreds!  But of
+course some are harder to bear than others."
+
+"Tell me about one now!" said Mildred, leaning back against the cushions
+and settling herself to listen in comfort.  "Do, Mardie!  I feel just in
+the humour to listen to a story; and I know it will be interesting if
+you tell it.  `The Story of a Disappointment!'  Something exciting that
+happened to you when you were young.  Now then, go along!  Begin at
+once!"
+
+Mardie laughed, and then pretended to look indignant.
+
+"When I was young, indeed!  What do you call me now?  When you are my
+age you will be very indignant if anyone calls you old.  Well now, let
+me see!  I'll tell you the story of a disappointment which happened to--
+well--not exactly to me, but to a very great friend whom I had known all
+my life.  He tried to get on in business in England, but it seemed as if
+there was no opening for him here, and at last he made up his mind to go
+abroad.  He heard through an advertisement of an opening in a tea
+plantation in Assam (Assam, Mildred!  You know where it is, of course),
+and though he hated the idea of leaving home, he thought it was the
+right thing to do.  Well, he went.  It was a long and expensive journey,
+and when he arrived he found that things were not at all as they had
+been represented.  I can't enter into details, but the advertisement had
+been one of those cruel frauds by which young men are tempted abroad,
+and robbed of time and money.  My friend was clever enough to see
+through the deception, and refused to have anything to do with the
+business.  That was all right so far as it went, but there he was, alone
+in a strange land, not knowing where to turn, or what to do to earn a
+livelihood.  It was just about this time that the planters in Ceylon
+were beginning to grow the cinchona-tree, from the bark of which the
+medicine known as quinine is made; and it happened one day that my
+friend overheard two gentlemen discussing the prospects of the crops and
+speaking very enthusiastically about it.  He made inquiries in as many
+directions as he could, and finally decided to go south to Ceylon and
+prospect.  He had some money of his own, and he was fortunate enough to
+meet a man who had been in the island for years, and who had valuable
+experience.  They bought an estate between them, planted it with
+cinchona, and worked hard to cultivate it; and it is very hard, Mildred,
+for an Englishman to work in the open air in those tropical countries!
+It was a difficult crop to raise, and misfortune befell all the estates
+around.  The roots `cankered', the leaves turned red and dropped off, so
+that the trees had to be uprooted, and very little if any of the bark
+could be used.  My friend's estate, however, flourished more and more.
+His partner was a clever planter, and they were not content to leave the
+work to the care of an overseer, but looked after it themselves, night
+and day.  There was not a single precaution which they neglected; not an
+improvement which they left untried, and as I say the place flourished--
+people talked about it--it became well known in the island.  It was all
+the more valuable because of the failure of the other estates, and the
+sum which the estate would realise, if all went well, would be a
+fortune--large enough to provide both partners for life.
+
+"Imagine how they felt, Mildred!  How eager they were; how delighted.
+They had been away from home for years by this time, and were longing to
+return.  They had each their own castle in the air, and it seemed as if
+this money would build it on solid earth.  For some time everything
+flourished, then--one morning--"
+
+Miss Margaret paused, and drew a difficult breath; Mildred stared at her
+with dilated eyes.
+
+"My friend wrote me all about it.  They had finished breakfast and
+strolled out together, talking of what they would do when the next few
+weeks were over, and the money was paid down.  They were to buy presents
+in Colombo, take passages in the first steamer, and come home laden with
+spoils.  The partner--his name was `Ned'--was picturing the scene which
+would take place at his home when he distributed the treasures which he
+had bought for his sisters--amethyst rings, tortoise-shell brushes,
+brass ornaments.  He walked on ahead, gesticulating, and waving his
+hands in the air.  Suddenly he stopped short, started violently, and
+stared at one of the carefully-guarded cinchona-trees.
+
+"`What is it, Ned?' cried his partner, and at that the other turned his
+face.  It had been all bright and sparkling a moment before.  It was
+changed now--like the face of an old, old man.  My friend looked and
+saw: the leaves were shrivelling--it was the beginning of the red
+blight!"
+
+Miss Margaret jumped up from her seat and began to pace the room.  Her
+voice quivered; her eyes had a suspicious brightness; while Mildred was
+undisguisedly tearful.
+
+"Oh, Mardie!  How awful!  Oh, the poor, poor fellows!  What did they
+do?"
+
+"There was nothing to be done.  They knew that by experience.  The
+blight would spread and spread until the whole estate was destroyed.
+They could do nothing to stop it.  They went back to the bungalow and
+sat there all day long--without speaking a word or lifting their eyes
+from the ground.  All the years of hard, unceasing work had been for
+nothing--"
+
+Mardie stopped abruptly.
+
+"And after--afterwards?"
+
+Mardie stood with her back to her companion, as if avoiding her glance.
+Her voice had a curiously tired, listless expression.
+
+"Oh!--they dug up the ground to plant tea, and began life over again."
+
+"But, Mardie, dear, don't be so sorry!  It was terribly hard, but after
+all it is over, and it did not affect your own personal happiness!"
+
+Mardie moved the ornaments on the dressing-table with nervous fingers.
+
+"It is getting late," she said.  "Put on your hat, Mildred, and let us
+have a stroll in the garden before it is dusk."
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+SUNSHINE AGAIN!
+
+The next day brought reassuring news of Robbie, who had had a good
+night, and was distinctly better.  Mildred was devoutly thankful; but
+now that the strain of anxiety was relieved, the loneliness of her
+position began to weigh upon her with all the old intensity.  She grew
+tired of reading and writing letters, and the silence of the big, empty
+house weighed upon her spirits.
+
+"Three days--and already it seemed like a month!  Then what will a month
+feel like? and two months?" she asked herself in a tremor of alarm.  "It
+is all very well for Mardie to say, `Take one day at a time, and don't
+worry about the future.'  She wouldn't find it so easy in my place!
+Bertha might send me a letter!  I didn't expect her to write the first
+day she was at home, but she might have managed it the second, under the
+circumstances!"
+
+Miss Margaret was engaged with callers; the servants busy at their work.
+Mildred was at her wits' end to know what to do with herself.  She
+flattened her face against the window, and stared gloomily down the
+drive.
+
+"Two more visitors coming to see Mardie.  That means another half-hour
+at the least before I can go downstairs to have tea.  An old lady, and a
+young one in a light dress, and a hat with pink roses.  She doesn't look
+a bit nice!" pronounced Mildred in critical spirit; "I shall dress much
+better than that when I am grown up.  Her boots are awful!--old, shabby
+things beneath a grand dress.  I would rather spend less on finery and
+have respectable feet.  The old lady is as broad as she is long; her
+bonnet is crooked!  Why doesn't the girl put it straight before they go
+into the house?  I wouldn't allow my mother to be so untidy!  She looks
+fearfully hot!"
+
+Mildred stared at the old lady and her daughter until a sweep of the
+drive hid them from sight, and felt more lonely than ever when they had
+disappeared.  For ten minutes or more not another soul could be seen,
+then the postman came briskly trotting towards the house.  Mildred heard
+the peal of the bell, and became fired with curiosity to know whether
+any of the letters were for herself.  Probably, almost certainly; for
+this was the post from the south, in which direction almost all the
+girls had their homes.  There might be one from Bertha among the number.
+How aggravating to know that they were lying in the letter-box at the
+present moment, and to be obliged to wait until the visitors took their
+departure before Mardie could come out and unlock it.
+
+"He had five or six in his hand; some of them must be for me.  Suppose
+now, just suppose I could have whatever I liked--what should I choose?
+A letter from a lawyer to say I had come in for a fortune of a million
+pounds?  That would be rather nice.  What should I do with it, I wonder?
+Mother couldn't come away with me just now, which would be a nuisance.
+I think I would travel about with Mardie, and look at all the big
+estates that were for sale, and buy one with a tower and a beautiful big
+park, with deer, and peacocks, and sun-dials on the grass.  I'd go up to
+London to buy the furniture,--the most artistic furniture that was ever
+seen.  The drawing-room and library should be left for Mother to
+arrange, but I'd finish all the rest, so that she could come the first
+moment it was safe.  I'd have a suite of rooms for myself next to hers.
+A big sitting-room,--blue,--with white wood arches over the windows;
+dear little bookcases fitting into the corners, and electric lights
+hanging like lilies from the wall.  Opening out of that there would be
+another little room where I could amuse myself as I liked, without being
+so awfully tidy.  I'd do wood-carving there, and painting, and sewing.
+I might have a little cooking-stove in one corner to make toffee and
+caramels whenever I felt inclined, but I'm not quite decided about that.
+It would be rather sticky, and I could always go down to the kitchen.
+Then there would be my bedroom--pink,--with the sweetest little bed,
+with curtains draped across from one side of the top to the other side
+of the bottom.  I saw one like that once, and it was lovely.  I'd have
+all sorts of nice things out-of-doors, too--horses for Mother and myself
+to ride, and long-tailed ponies for the children.  I'd like to send the
+little ones to boarding-schools, but I am afraid Mother wouldn't consent
+to that; but they could have governesses and tutors, and a school-room
+right at the other end of the house.  I should have nothing to do with
+teaching them, of course.  I should be called `The Heiress of the
+Grange', and all the village children would bob as I passed by.  It
+would be rather nice.  I would give them a treat in the grounds every
+year on my birthday, and they would drink my health.  It seems a great
+deal of happiness for a million pounds.  I wish I had someone to leave
+it to me--an old uncle in Australia or Africa; someone I had never seen,
+then I could enjoy it without feeling sorry."
+
+The prospect of inheriting a million pounds was so engrossing that it
+was with quite a shock of surprise that Mildred perceived the old lady
+and her daughter retracing their steps down the drive.  Downstairs she
+flew, two steps at a time, and discovered Miss Margaret emptying the
+letter-box of its contents.
+
+"Oh, Mardie, I saw the postman coming, ages ago!  I've been dying to get
+that key for the last half-hour!"
+
+"Have you, really?  I am sorry; but you are well repaid.  Three letters
+for you, and only one for me.  You are fortunate to-day."
+
+"Bertha--Carrie--Norah!"  Mildred turned over the envelopes one by one,
+and skipped into the drawing-room with dancing tread.  "Now for a treat.
+I love letters.  I shall keep Bertha's to the last, and see what these
+other young ladies have to say for themselves."
+
+She settled herself comfortably in an armchair, and Miss Margaret,
+having read her own note, watched her with an expression of expectant
+curiosity.  The two first letters were short and obviously unexciting;
+the third contained several inclosures at which Mildred stared with
+puzzled eyes.  One looked like a telegram, but the flash of fear on her
+face was quickly superseded by amazement, as she read the words of the
+message.  Last of all came Bertha's own communication, and when that had
+been mastered the reader's cheeks were aglow, her eyes bright with
+excitement.  She raised her head, and there was Mardie staring at her
+from the other end of the room, and smiling as though she knew all about
+it.
+
+"Oh, Mardie, the most wonderful thing!  It's from Mrs Faucit; an
+invitation to go and stay with them for a whole month!  She has written
+to Mother, and here is a telegram which came in reply, saying that she
+is delighted to allow me to accept.  I am to go at once.  There is a
+note from Mrs Faucit as well as one from Bertha.  So kind!  She says
+they are to be at home for a month before taking the girls to
+Switzerland for a few weeks, and that it will be a great pleasure to
+have me.  I wish--I wish--"
+
+She stopped short, staring at Miss Margaret with an expression of
+comical penitence.  Even when that lady inquired, "Well, what do you
+wish now, you dissatisfied child?" it was several minutes before she
+replied.
+
+"Nothing; only when you have made a great fuss about a thing, and it
+turns out in the end that you haven't to do it after all, you feel
+rather--_small_.  I wish now that I had been good and resigned; I should
+feel so much more comfortable.  I suppose my going won't make any
+difference to you, Mardie?"
+
+"Only this, that I shall hurry through my work as quickly as possible,
+and go away now instead of waiting until my sister returns.  I am
+delighted, Mildred! it's just as nice as it can be.  I have had a letter
+from Mrs Faucit, too.  She asks you to go at once, but I am not sure if
+we can manage that."  She hesitated, looking at her pupil with uncertain
+eyes.  "She is so pretty, bless her!" she was saying to herself, "that
+she always manages to look well; but she is shabby!  I should think her
+mother would wish her to have one or two new dresses before she goes.  I
+must speak about it.  You see, Mildred," she said aloud, "I am thinking
+about your clothes.  You will probably be asked to a great many tennis
+and garden parties while you are at The Deanery, and you will have to be
+more particular than at school.  Do you think you can go with what you
+have, or shall we get something new?  We might call at the dressmaker's
+to-morrow."
+
+Mildred shook her head.
+
+"Oh, no!  I must go as I am, Mardie, or stay at school.  I wouldn't ask
+Mother for money just now, not for the world.  There will be doctors'
+bills, and a dozen extra expenses to meet, and she has a hard enough
+time as it is.  I can buy some little things--shoes, and gloves, and a
+sailor hat--with the money I have: nearly twenty-five shillings
+altogether; but it is no use thinking about a dress.  I shall do very
+well.  I have the blue crepe, and the brown, and the dyed green, and
+this good old serge to wear with blouses.  If I see people examining my
+clothes, I shall shake my hair all over my back, and stare as hard as I
+can, so that they will be obliged to turn away...  If we go into town
+to-morrow, I could go on Wednesday, couldn't I?"
+
+"Say Friday, dear; it will give us a little more time."  For, to
+herself, Miss Margaret was saying: "I will engage that clever little
+sewing-woman to come in for a couple of days and look over her dresses.
+She is quite right to consider her mother's purse, but she will feel her
+own shortcomings when she is among the Faucit's friends.  I must do all
+I can to make it easier for the child.  There is one comfort, she is
+easy to dress."
+
+Mildred danced away to answer her friend's letter in overflowing
+spirits.  She had never before paid a visit on her own account, and it
+seemed delightfully grown-up to be going to a strange house by herself.
+A Deanery, too!  There was something so imposing about the sound.  One
+Deanery was worth a dozen ordinary, commonplace houses, just as Bertha
+was worth a hundred other friends.  Dear, darling Bertha--this was her
+idea, of course!  It took three sheets of note-paper to contain all
+Mildred's expressions of delight.
+
+The next day was set apart for the shopping expedition, an occasion
+calling for anxious consideration.  At Miss Margaret's suggestion
+Mildred drew out a list of the articles which she wished to purchase out
+of her twenty-five shillings of capital.  It was neatly written on a
+sheet of note-paper, with descriptive notes attached to the various
+items, and red lines ruled between, so that it presented quite a
+superior appearance.  The list ran as follows:--
+
+New shoes (pretty ones this time,--not thick).
+
+Slippers (with buckles).
+
+Gloves (light and dark).
+
+Ribbons.
+
+Something to do up the hat.
+
+Sashes.
+
+Lace things for evening.
+
+Scent.
+
+P.F.M.
+
+Miss Margaret read the list, and shook with laughter.
+
+"Are you sure there is nothing else?" she inquired.  "How much more do
+you expect from those poor twenty-five shillings?  They can never, by
+any possibility, be induced to buy so much.  What is the mysterious
+P.F.M.?"
+
+"A necessity; can't be crossed out.  Oh, dear," groaned Mildred, "what a
+bother it is!"  She tore off half a sheet of paper this time, and did
+not attempt any decorations.  Then she went over the items one by one,
+sighing heavily as she did so.
+
+"I can't do without shoes; I can't do without slippers; I can't do
+without gloves.  I might get silk ones, of course, but they make me feel
+creepy-creepy all over.  I daren't touch anything when I have them on.
+I should look like one of those wax figures in shop windows, with my
+arms sticking out on either side!  I can't do without ribbons; I can't
+do--well, I suppose I _could_ wear the old hat as it is, and do without
+scent, and a sash, and laces, or any single pretty thing to put on at
+night, but I don't want to!  They are the most interesting things...
+Oh, dear, here goes!" and list number two was dashed off in disgusted
+haste.
+
+Shoes.
+
+Slippers.
+
+Sailor Hat.
+
+Gloves.  P.F.M.
+
+"That's short enough now!  All the fripperies cut out, and the dull
+necessities left.  I can get these, I suppose, Mardie?"
+
+Miss Margaret believed that she could "with care", whereupon Mildred
+wrinkled her saucy nose, and said she should never have any respect for
+twenty-five shillings again, since it appeared that so very little could
+be obtained in exchange.
+
+The shopping expedition was a great success, however, in spite of all
+drawbacks.  The purchases were pretty and good of their kind, and
+Mildred felt an agreeable sense of virtue in having chosen useful things
+rather than ornamental.  She had still a little plan of her own which
+she was anxious to execute before returning home, and took the
+opportunity to make a request while waiting for change in a large
+drapery establishment.
+
+"I want to go to another department, Mardie.  Do you mind if I leave you
+for a few minutes?"
+
+"Not at all.  I have some little things to get too.  Suppose we arrange
+to meet at the door in ten minutes from now?"
+
+Mildred dashed off in her usual impetuous fashion, but presently came to
+a standstill before a long, glass-covered counter, on which was
+displayed a fascinating assortment of silver and enamel goods.  For the
+first few moments the assistant in charge took no further notice than a
+glance of kindly admiration.  School-girls in short dresses, and with
+clouds of golden hair hanging loose round their shoulders, are not given
+to the purchase of valuable articles such as these; but Mildred
+proceeded to ask the price of one thing after another, with an air of
+such serious consideration as made it seem likely that she was to be the
+exception to the rule.
+
+The glass case was opened, little heart-shaped trays and boxes brought
+forth, and such rhapsodies indulged in concerning silver-backed mirrors
+that the assistant felt certain of a sale.  She was stretching
+underneath the glass to reach a mirror of another pattern, when Mildred
+suddenly glanced up at a clock, ejaculated "Oh, I must go!  Thank you so
+much!" and rushed off at full speed in another direction.  The ten
+minutes were nearly over, and Mildred had not executed the private
+business which she had on hand.  She turned the corner where parasols
+hung in tempting array, passed the fancy work with resolute
+indifference, and making a dash for the perfumery counter came into
+collision with a lady who was just turning away, parcel in hand.
+
+The lady lifted her eyes in surprise.  By all that was mysterious and
+unexpected, it was Miss Margaret herself!  Mildred blushed, Mardie
+laughed.
+
+"What are you doing here, Ubiquitous Person?" she cried, but immediately
+turned aside in tactful fashion, and made her way to the door.
+
+No reference to this encounter was made on either side, but later in the
+day a comical incident occurred.  When Miss Margaret went upstairs to
+dress for dinner, she found a small box lying upon her dressing-table,
+on the paper covering of which an inscription was written in well-known,
+straggly writing:
+
+"_Mardie, with heaps of love and many thanks, from Mildred_."
+
+Inside the box was a bottle of White Rose perfume, at the sight of which
+Miss Margaret began to laugh with mysterious enjoyment.  When Mildred
+appeared a few minutes later, blushing and embarrassed, she said never a
+word of thanks, but led her across the room towards a table which had
+been specially devoted to her use.  Mildred stared around, and then
+began to laugh in her turn, for there lay a parcel of precisely the same
+shape and size as that which she had addressed a few minutes earlier,
+and her own name was written on the cover.
+
+"Great minds think alike!" cried Mardie.  "So this is the explanation of
+that mysterious `P.F.M.'!  But what are the thanks for, dear?"
+
+"Oh, everything!  You are so nice, you know, and I've been so nasty!"
+said Mildred.
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+THE JOURNEY TO THE DEANERY.
+
+Friday arrived in a bustle of work and excitement.  For the last two
+days Miss Margaret's little sewing-woman had taken possession of the
+work-room, and Mildred's well-worn dresses had been sponged and pressed,
+with such wholesale renewals of braid and buttons as brought back a
+remembrance of their lost youth.  And now all was ready.  Letters from
+home announced further improvements in Robbie's condition; Miss Margaret
+was radiant in the prospect of her own holiday; there was nothing to
+shadow Mildred's expectation, and it really seemed as if it had been
+worth while having those days of disappointment and anxiety, so
+delightful was the reaction.
+
+Miss Margaret and her pupil had a great many nice things to say to each
+other in the few minutes before the train steamed out of the station.
+Mildred had said "thank you" so many times during the last few days,
+that there was little left to be done in that direction, but she was
+full of warm-hearted affection.
+
+"I shall always remember how good you have been to me, Mardie.  I think
+you are the nicest person in the world next to Mother.  I shouldn't mind
+being old if I could be like you."
+
+"But my dear child, I don't consider myself old at all!  When you get to
+my age you will have discovered that you are just beginning to be young.
+I wonder if,--when,--if you would--"
+
+Mardie checked herself suddenly, and Mildred, scenting one of those
+secrets which are the delight of a school-girl's existence, called out
+an eager: "What?  What?  What?"
+
+"Oh, nothing!  I only wondered if you would be very much shocked if I
+were betrayed into doing something very foolish and youthful one of
+these days."
+
+Mildred stared down from the altitude of the carriage window.
+
+What could Mardie mean?  There was no secret about her age.  It was
+inscribed in every birth-day-book in the school, and thirty seemed
+venerable in the estimation of fourteen.  It did occur to the girl at
+this moment that Miss Margaret looked unusually charming for an elderly
+lady--those sweet eyes of hers were sweeter than ever when lighted by a
+happy smile.
+
+"I am sure you will never be foolish, Mardie!" she said reassuringly,
+and then the engine whistled, the guard waved his flag, and there was
+only time for a hurried embrace before the train was off.
+
+So long as the platform remained in sight Mildred's head was out of the
+window; then she sat down to find herself confronted by the mild-faced
+old lady into whose charge she had been committed.
+
+She was an ideal old lady so far as appearances went.  Her hair was
+white as snow; her chin nestled upon bows of lavender ribbon, and her
+face beamed with good nature; nevertheless Mildred found her fixed
+scrutiny a trifle discomposing, and stared out of the window by way of
+escape.  For ten minutes on end the old lady gazed away with unblushing
+composure, then suddenly burst into conversation.
+
+"Dear me, my love, you have a great deal of it!  Are you not afraid that
+it may injure your health?"
+
+Mildred fairly jumped with astonishment.
+
+"Afraid?  Of what?  I beg your pardon--I don't understand--"
+
+"Your hair, my dear!--so much of it.  They say, you know, that it saps
+the strength.  A young friend of mine had hair just like yours--you
+remind me very much of her--and she died!  Consumption, they called it.
+The doctors said all her strength went into her hair!"
+
+Mildred laughed merrily.
+
+"Oh, well! it's quite different with me, I have plenty of strength left
+over for myself.  I am as strong as a horse, and have hardly been ill a
+day in my life."
+
+"Dear!  Dear!" ejaculated the old lady.  "And with that complexion too--
+pink and white.  Now I should have been afraid--"
+
+She fell to shaking her head in lugubrious fashion, and watched the
+girl's movements with anxious scrutiny.
+
+"Do you think you are quite wise to sit next the window, love?" she
+asked presently.  "You look a little flushed, and there is always a
+draught.  Won't you come over and sit by me?  Just as you like, of
+course; but I assure you you can't be too careful.  I noticed that you
+cleared your throat just now.  Ah, that's just what a young friend of
+mine used to say, `It's only a little tickling in my throat,' but it
+grew worse and worse, my dear, till the doctors could do nothing for
+her.  I am always nervous about colds--"
+
+"She has been very unfortunate in her `young friends'!" commented
+Mildred to herself, but she made no reply, and the old lady waited fully
+two minutes before venturing another remark.
+
+"Your--er--aunt seems a very sweet creature, my dear!  You must be sorry
+to part from her."
+
+"I am.  Very!  But she is not my aunt."
+
+"You don't say so!  Not a sister, surely?  I never should have thought
+it--"
+
+"She is not a sister either."  (Now, what in the world can it matter to
+her whether we are relations or not!  I suppose I had better tell her,
+or she will be suggesting `mother' next).  "She is one of the
+school-mistresses.  I am just leaving school."
+
+The old lady appeared overwhelmed by this intelligence.  Her placid
+expression vanished, her forehead became fretted with lines, and she
+looked so distressed that it was all Mildred could do to keep from
+bursting into a fit of laughter.
+
+"A boarding-school!  Oh, my dear!" she cried.  Then in a tone of
+breathless eagerness, "Now tell me--quite in confidence, you know,
+absolutely in confidence,--do they give you enough to eat?  Oh, my love,
+I could tell you such stories--the saddest experiences--"
+
+"Dear young friends of her own, starved to death!  I know," said Mildred
+to herself, and she broke in hastily upon the reminiscences, to give
+such glowing accounts of the management of Milvern House as made the old
+lady open her eyes in astonishment.
+
+"Four courses for dinner, and a second helping whenever you like.  Now
+really, my dear, you must write down the address of that school for me.
+I have so many young friends.  And have you any idea of the terms?"
+
+She was certainly an inquisitive old lady, but she was very
+kind-hearted, and when one o'clock arrived she insisted upon Mildred
+sharing the contents of her well-filled luncheon-basket.  Her endless
+questions served another purpose too, for they filled up the time, and
+made the journey seem shorter than it would otherwise have done.  It
+came as quite a surprise when the train steamed into the station at B--,
+and Mildred had not time to lower the window before it had come to a
+standstill.  She caught a glimpse of her friends upon the platform,
+however, and in another minute was out of the carriage, waving her hand
+to attract attention.
+
+Bertha and Lois were accompanied by a lady who was so evidently their
+mother that there could be no doubt upon the subject.  She had the same
+pale complexion and dark eyes, the same small features and dainty,
+well-finished appearance.  As Mildred advanced along the platform to
+meet the three figures in their trim, tweed suits, she became suddenly
+conscious of flying locks, wrinkled gloves, and loose shoe-laces, and
+blushed for her own deficiencies.  She could not hear Bertha's rapturous
+"There she is!  Look, Mother!  Do you wonder that we call her the `Norse
+Princess?'" or Mrs Faucit's "Is that Mildred?  She looks charming,
+Bertha.  It is a very good description;" but the greetings which she
+received were so cordial as to set her completely at ease.
+
+On the drive home Mrs Faucit leant back in her corner of the carriage,
+and listened to the conversation which went on between the three girls
+in smiling silence.  She soon heard enough to prove that it was the
+attraction of opposites which drew the stranger and her own daughters so
+closely together, but though Mildred's impetuosity was a trifle
+startling, she was irresistibly attracted, not only by her beauty, but
+by the frank, open expression of the grey eyes.
+
+"Plenty of spirit," she said to herself, "as well as honest and
+true-hearted!  Miss Chilton was right.  She will do the girls good.
+They are a little too quiet for their age.  I am glad I asked her--"
+
+"What did you think, Mildred, when Mother's letter arrived with the
+invitation?"  Lois asked, and Mildred clasped her hands in ecstatic
+remembrance.
+
+"Oh-h, I can't tell you!  I had just been longing for a letter, and
+wondering what sort of one I would have if I could chose.  I decided
+that I would hear that I had inherited a fortune, and I was just
+arranging how to spend it when your letter arrived.  Lovely! lovely!  I
+wanted to come off the next day, but Mardie objected.  She has been so
+good to me, and I was a perfect horror for the first few days.  I was
+ashamed of myself when your invitation came.  Oh, what a funny old place
+this is!  What curious houses--what narrow little streets!"
+
+Mrs Faucit smiled.
+
+"We are very proud of our old city, Mildred," she said.  "We must show
+you all the sights--the walls, and the castle, and the old streets down
+which the mail-coaches used to pass on their way to London.  Some of
+them are so narrow that you would hardly believe there was room for a
+coach.  These newer streets seem to us quite wide and fashionable in
+comparison."
+
+Even as she was speaking the carriage suddenly wheeled round a corner,
+and turned up a road leading to the Deanery gates.  Mildred was not
+familiar with the peculiarities of old cathedral cities, and she stared
+in bewilderment at the sudden change of scene.  One moment they had been
+in a busy, shop-lined thoroughfare; the next they were apparently in the
+depths of the country--avenues of beech-trees rising on either side;
+moss growing between the stones on the walls; and such an air of still
+solemnity all around, as can be found nowhere in the world but in the
+precincts of a cathedral.
+
+The Deanery itself was in character with its surroundings.  The entrance
+hall was large and dim; furnished in oak, with an array of old armour
+upon the walls.  In winter time, when a large fire blazed in the grate,
+it looked cheerful and home-like enough, but coming in from the bright
+summer sunshine the effect was decidedly chilling, and Mildred's eyes
+grew large and awe-stricken as she glanced around.  The next moment,
+however, Mrs Faucit threw open a door to the right, and ushered her
+guest into the most charming room she had ever seen.
+
+Whatever of cheerfulness was wanting in the hall without was abundantly
+present here.  One bay window looked out on to the lawn, and the row of
+old beeches in the distance; another opened into a conservatory ablaze
+with flowering plants, while over the mantel-piece was a third window,
+raising perplexing questions in the mind concerning the position of the
+chimney.  Wherever the eye turned there was some beautiful object to
+hold it entranced, and Mildred was just saying to herself, "I shall have
+one of my drawing-rooms furnished exactly like this!" when she became
+aware that someone was seated in an armchair close to where she herself
+was standing.
+
+"Well, Lady Sarah, we have brought back our little friend.  This is
+Mildred.  She has accomplished her journey in safety.  Mildred, I must
+introduce you to our other guest, Lady Sarah Monckton."
+
+"How do you do?" murmured Mildred politely.  Lady Sarah put up a pair of
+eye-glasses mounted on a tortoise-shell stick, and stared at her
+critically from head to foot.  Then she dropped them with a sharp click,
+as if what she saw was not worth the trouble of regarding, and addressed
+herself to Mrs Faucit in accents of commiseration.
+
+"My dear, you look shockingly tired!  Train late, as usual, I suppose!
+It is always the way with this wretched service.  I know nothing more
+exhausting than hanging about a platform waiting for people who are
+behind their time.  Bertha looks white too.  You have had no tea, of
+course.  You must be longing for it?"
+
+"Oh!  I am always ready for tea, but we had only a few minutes to wait.
+Sit down, Mildred dear, you must be the hungry one after your long
+journey.  James will bring in the tray in another moment."
+
+Mrs Faucit smiled in an encouraging manner, for she had seen a blank
+expression overspread the girl's face as she listened to Lady Sarah's
+remarks.  "She speaks as if it were my fault!"  Mildred was saying to
+herself.  "How could I help it if the train was late?  She never even
+said, `How do you do?'  I wonder who she can be?"
+
+It was her turn to stare now, and once having begun to look at Lady
+Sarah, it was difficult to turn away, for such an extraordinary looking
+individual she had never seen before in the whole course of her life.
+Her face was wan and haggard, and a perfect net-work of wrinkles; but it
+was surmounted by a profusion of light-brown hair, curled and waved in
+the latest fashion; her skinny hands glittered with rings, and her dress
+was light in colour, and elaborately trimmed.  She had a small waist,
+wide sleeves, and high-heeled shoes peeping out from beneath the frills
+of her skirt.  If it had not been for her face, she might have passed
+for a fashionable young lady, but her face was beyond the reach of art,
+and looked pitifully out of keeping with its surroundings.
+
+Country-bred Mildred could not conceal her amazement.  She sat on her
+high-backed chair, her golden hair falling in a shower over her
+shoulders, her grey eyes wider than ever as she stared transfixed at
+this extraordinary spectacle.  Even when tea was handed round, she
+continued to cast surreptitious glances over the brim of her cup, and to
+eat bread-and-butter with divided attention.
+
+Mrs Faucit noticed her absorption, and tried to engage her in
+conversation, but in vain.  Mildred murmured a polite little answer of
+half a dozen words, and turned back to stare at Lady Sarah with
+fascinated curiosity.  It was a relief to her hostess when the girl
+refused a second cup of tea, and she lost no time in suggesting an
+adjournment upstairs.
+
+"Bertha, I am sure Mildred will be glad to go to her own room now.  Will
+you show the way, dear?  We will not expect to see you again until
+dinner-time, as I know you will enjoy being alone!"
+
+Outside in the hall Mildred stood still, and pointed through the closed
+door with an outstretched finger.
+
+"What in the world is--That?"
+
+"`That!'  What?  Do you mean lady Sarah?  Oh, Mildred, do be careful!"
+chorused the twins.  "She might come out.  She might open the door and
+hear you!  She is Lady Sarah Monckton.  Her husband died in India.  He
+was a sort of connection of Father's, so she comes here once or twice a
+year to consult him about her affairs."
+
+"A sort of connection!  What sort?  Near or far?  Do you know her well?
+Shall I hurt your feelings if I say anything disagreeable?  No.  I'm so
+glad.  I'll tell you then--I--don't--like--her--at all!"
+
+The sisters looked at each other and smiled.  They had evidently
+expected something more scathing in the way of denunciation, and were
+not inclined to condemn Mildred for her opinion.
+
+"Well, no; of course not.  Nobody could!  We always look upon her as a
+Trial!" said Bertha pensively.  "She makes Mother ever so much stricter
+than she would be if she were left alone, and thinks it improper for a
+young lady to do anything that is nice.  We were sorry that your visits
+should have come together, but it could not be helped.  Perhaps she
+won't interfere so much when we have a visitor!"
+
+"She has taken a dislike to me, so I expect I shall have the benefit!
+Didn't you see the way she glowered at me through those awful glasses?
+Why does she look like that?  Is she a young woman with an old face, or
+an old one with young clothes?  Why can't she be contented to be one
+thing at a time?  Is she going to make a long visit?"
+
+"I don't know.  She has brought a maid and heaps of dresses, so I
+suppose she is.  Mother says we must remember that she is very old, and
+has had a great many troubles, and try not to annoy her--"
+
+"Your mother is a dear!"  Mildred cried enthusiastically.  "I will be
+nice to Lady Sarah to please her, but I don't believe she is at all
+inclined to be nice to me.  We will see."
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+LADY SARAH.
+
+Mildred had been a week at The Deanery, and if her enjoyment during that
+time had not been entirely unalloyed, the fault lay without question
+with Lady Sarah, for all the members of the family vied with each other
+as to who could show the young guest the most kindness.  Even the Dean
+himself fell a victim to the "Norse Princess", much to his wife's
+amusement, for he was, as a rule, the most unnoticing of men.  Mildred
+had written to her mother that Bertha's father was "exactly like a
+Dean."  She had never met such a dignitary before, it is true, but she
+had an impression that he ought to look wise and studious, and Dean
+Faucit fulfilled these requirements to the uttermost.
+
+He had a thin face, with grave eyes set in a net-work of lines; his
+shoulders were bowed with poring over the study-desk; and he was,
+moreover, so absent-minded that he made two separate attempts before he
+succeeded in grasping Mildred's hand on the occasion of their first
+introduction.  She had been several days in the house before he had the
+vaguest idea of her appearance, but one morning it chanced that he
+raised his eyes from the breakfast-table to complain of the sunlight
+which was pouring in at the window; and right opposite sat Mildred, her
+eyes dancing with happiness, a soft pink flush on her cheeks, and her
+hair shining like threads of gold.  The Dean started, and drew his brows
+together, staring at her in curious, short-sighted fashion.  He was so
+accustomed to the dim light of the Cathedral, and to the pale faces of
+his wife and children, that Mildred, with her bright colouring, seemed
+the embodiment of the sunshine itself.  He fumbled for his glasses,
+scrutinised her furtively from time to time as the meal progressed, and
+when it was over, lingered behind to speak of her to his wife.
+
+"That friend of Bertha's seems to he--er--a nice little girl, dear!
+There is something in her face which affects me very pleasantly.  I--
+er--I hope you are doing all you can to give her a pleasant time.  Do
+you--er--think she would like to look at my book plates?"
+
+Mrs Faucit laughed, and slipped her hand inside his arm.
+
+"No, my dear old man!" she said.  "I don't think she would like it all.
+I think she would be profoundly bored.  Leave her to the girls.  They
+are as happy as the day is long, wandering about together."
+
+"Ah, well, you know best! but I should like the child to enjoy herself.
+It has struck me once or twice that Sarah Monckton--eh?--not quite so
+sympathetic to the young folks as she might be, I'm afraid.  There was
+something at dinner the other night--I didn't hear it all, but I had an
+impression--an impression--.  It distressed me very much.  I--er--hope
+she doesn't interfere with the girls' enjoyment."
+
+"Oh, no!  Don't worry yourself, dear.  They are quite happy," protested
+Mrs Faucit soothingly; but when her husband had returned to his study
+she sighed a little, as though she were not altogether so easy in her
+mind as she had led him to believe.
+
+The scene at the dinner-table to which the Dean had referred was
+uncomfortably fresh in her own memory.  It had arisen through Mildred's
+horrified surprise at the sight of Lady Sarah in evening dress, and the
+unconscious manner in which she showed her disapproval.  Mrs Faucit
+made up her mind that she would take an early opportunity of suggesting
+to her young visitor that she had better not stare at the old lady in so
+marked a manner, but she was too late, for before the meal was over Lady
+Sarah suddenly laid her knife and fork on her plate, and transfixed
+Mildred with an awful frown.
+
+"Well, Miss Moore, what is it all about?  Pray let me hear what is
+wrong, so that I may put it right at once.  If I am to have my dinner,
+this sort of thing cannot go on any longer."
+
+The girl's start of amazement was painful to behold.  The sharp voice
+struck her like a blow, and she was absolutely ignorant as to her
+offence.
+
+"I--I don't understand!  What have I done?"
+
+"Only kept your eyes fixed upon me from the moment you sat down until
+now.  It is most ill-bred to stare in that undisguised manner.  Pray, is
+there anything extraordinary in my appearance that you find it so
+impossible to look at anyone else?"
+
+The blood rushed into Mildred's cheeks, but she made no reply.
+
+"Is there anything extraordinary in my appearance, I ask you?" repeated
+Lady Sarah shrilly.
+
+It was impossible to avoid answering a second time, but while the
+listeners were trembling at the thought of what might happen next,
+Mildred raised her head, and answered, with suddenly-regained composure:
+
+"I did not know I was staring.  I hope you will forgive me--I am very
+sorry if I have been rude."
+
+She spoke with a certain grave dignity, which sat well upon her, and
+Lady Sarah could not do otherwise than accept an apology so gracefully
+offered.  Nevertheless the marked way in which the girl had avoided
+answering her question was, if possible, more galling than the original
+offence, and the glances which she sent across the table were the
+reverse of friendly.
+
+From this time forth it seemed impossible for Mildred to do anything
+right in Lady Sarah's eyes.  Bertha and Lois were allowed to go on their
+way undisturbed, while the sharp tongue, which had been wont to vent its
+spleen upon them half a dozen times a day, found occupation in
+criticising their friend.
+
+She was rough, clumsy, awkward, Lady Sarah declared.  She came into a
+room like a whirlwind; she ran up and downstairs more like a schoolboy
+than a young lady.  As to her hair--that cloudy, golden hair which the
+others so much admired,--there was no end to the lectures poor Mildred
+received on this subject.  It was disgracefully untidy--such a head of
+hair as no lady could possibly reconcile herself to possessing.  In vain
+Mildred protested that the so-called untidiness was natural, and that no
+amount of brushing or damping could reduce those rebellious waves to
+order.  Lady Sarah arched her eyebrows, and wished she might only have a
+chance of trying.  She would guarantee to make it smooth enough.
+
+Mildred bit her lip and flushed indignantly.  It was on the tip of her
+tongue to say that she would be happy to grant the opportunity, run
+upstairs for her brushes, and force the old lady to prove the fallacy of
+her statements; but she restrained herself, and felt more than repaid
+for the effort when Mrs Faucit followed her out of the room a few
+moments later, and said:
+
+"I was so glad to see you keep your temper just now, dear.  It was
+trying for you, for of course we all know that what you said was
+perfectly true.  You couldn't possibly make your hair smooth, and it
+would be a pity if you could--it is far prettier as it is, but I don't
+want you to think too hardly of poor Lady Sarah.  You must remember that
+she is old and ailing, and has had a lonely life in spite of all her
+riches.  It is difficult to be amiable when one is old and frail, but it
+is very easy when you are young and happy.  Isn't it, Mildred?"
+
+"I don't know," said Mildred slowly.  "It isn't for me, because I am so
+quick-tempered.  You don't know how dreadful I feel when anyone vexes me
+like that.  My blood all goes fizz!  It seems as if I couldn't help
+answering back."
+
+"Well, that makes it all the better when you do control yourself!"  Mrs
+Faucit answered, laughing a little in her gentle, amused fashion; and
+Mildred ran upstairs, feeling delightfully virtuous.
+
+At that moment she was prepared to declare that no amount of aggravation
+on the part of Lady Sarah should ever induce her to answer hastily in
+return.
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+AN EXCITING PROSPECT.
+
+When Mildred had been staying for a fortnight at the Deanery, a letter
+arrived one morning which filled Bertha and Lois with delight, inasmuch
+as it contained an invitation to what they exultantly described as "the
+picnic of the year."
+
+The girls had already attended several tennis parties, and had organised
+small excursions on their own account, driving off in the pony carriage
+to spend an afternoon in the country in charge of the children's
+governess, but this picnic was to be on a very different scale.  Mrs
+Newland, it appeared, gave one every summer, and understood how to do
+things in proper style.  Her guests were to assemble at the station at a
+certain hour, as the first stage of the journey was by rail, but a
+couple of coaches were to be in readiness to convey them the remainder
+of the way.
+
+Their destination was a lovely little village, nestled among the hills,
+where a river wound in and out, and there were woods, and dells, and
+waterfalls, and caverns; everything in fact that the most exacting mind
+could desire for a well-regulated picnic.
+
+"And such delightful people--quite grown up!  You must not imagine that
+it is a children's picnic," explained Bertha anxiously.  "We are always
+the youngest there.  We would not be allowed to go at all except that
+the Newlands are very old friends, and that Mother chaperones us
+herself.  Mrs Newland takes two or three of the servants with her, and
+they carry hampers, and clear away the things while we amuse ourselves.
+We sit on the rocks in the middle of the river, and come home late at
+night, singing part songs on the top of the coach, with mandolin and
+guitar accompaniments.  Oh, it's lovely!  You will enjoy yourself,
+Mildred!"
+
+There was no question about that, for Mildred had the faculty of
+enjoying every little pleasure which came in her way, and that with a
+whole-heartedness and forgetfulness of drawbacks which would have been
+shared by few girls of her age.
+
+Bertha and Lois had a private consultation the first time they found
+themselves alone after the arrival of the invitation.
+
+"I am so glad Mil is to be with us for Mrs Newland's picnic," said the
+former.  "I want her to see all the people, and I want them to see her.
+She will chatter away and not be in the least shy, and they will be
+charmed with her, for she does say such funny things!  Even Father has
+to laugh sometimes.  Er--Lois!  I wonder what she is going to wear."
+
+"So do I!" said Lois calmly.  "I've been wondering about that ever since
+the invitation came, and yet I don't see why we should, for she has
+nothing with her but the old school dresses, so how can there be any
+choice?  She is certainly very shabby.  It must be horrid to have no
+pretty clothes.  I suppose they are very poor."
+
+"Oh, yes, I know they are!  Mildred makes no secret of it.  Poor dear!
+it is hard for her, when she is so well-connected, too," returned the
+dean's eldest daughter, in her funny, consequential, little voice.  "Her
+grandmother was the daughter of a very well-known man--I forget who he
+was, but she told me one day, and I know it was someone important.  She
+married without her parents' consent, and they never acknowledged her
+afterwards.  When Mildred's mother was grown up, one of the aunts wished
+to adopt her as a companion, but Mrs Moore refused to go, because she
+would have had to promise to have nothing more to do with her parents.
+The old lady was dreadfully offended, and they have never heard of her
+since that day."
+
+"And a good thing, too, if she was like some old ladies we could
+mention!" said Lois sharply, whereat her sister first laughed, and then
+sighed.
+
+"Oh, well, it's no use saying anything about that!  What were we talking
+about before--Mildred's dress?  Well, there is one comfort--she always
+looks sweet.  I dare say she will look one of the nicest there, though
+Mrs Newland's friends are so smart.  Don't say anything to her about
+our new dresses.  It might make her feel uncomfortable."
+
+There were no signs of discomfiture in Mildred's manner, however, when
+the new dresses arrived from town a week later on.  She had been romping
+with the children in the garden, and came dancing in through the open
+window of the library to find Mrs Faucit, Lady Sarah, and the two girls
+grouped round the table on which lay two large cardboard boxes.  The
+lids were thrown open, the tissue paper wrappings strewn over the floor,
+and Mildred, looking at the contents, gave a cry of pleasure and
+comprehension.
+
+"New dresses for the picnic!  Oh, how lovely!  Do let me look,"--and
+Lady Sarah's eye-glasses went up in horrified fashion as she swung
+herself on to the corner of the table in her anxiety to have a good
+view.
+
+The new dresses were charming, everything that the heart of girlhood
+could desire for the occasion; soft, creamy white, with lemon-coloured
+ribbons arranged in the most Frenchified style, and with big leghorn
+hats to match.  Even Lady Sarah smiled approval, but the exclamations of
+the other onlookers were feeble, as compared with Mildred's ecstatic
+rhapsodies.
+
+"Oh, the darlings!  Oh, the beauties!  Aren't they sweet?  Look at the
+ducky little bows at the elbows, and the little crinkly ruchings at the
+neck!  And the sashes!--oh, goodness, what yards of ribbon!--and yellow
+silk frills round the bottom--oh-h!  And the hats--Bertha, you will look
+an angel!  If I had a dress like that I should sit up all night--I'm
+sure I should!  I could never bring myself to take it off.  Oh-h!"
+
+Mrs Faucit looked at the fair, flushed face with mingled approval and
+pity.  "Poor, dear child!" she said to herself as she left the room in
+answer to a summons from a servant; "very few girls of her age would be
+so entirely free from envy.  I wish I had ventured to order a dress for
+her at the same time; but I was afraid she might not like it.  I wonder
+what she is going to wear?"
+
+The same question had occurred to another person, and not being
+possessed of the same delicacy of mind as the dean's wife, Lady Sarah
+saw no reason why her curiosity should not be gratified.
+
+"And when is your dress to arrive?" she inquired.  "What have you
+ordered for yourself, my dear?"
+
+"I--I ordered!"  Mildred fairly gasped.  The idea of "ordering" anything
+was so supremely ridiculous.  "I haven't ordered anything!"
+
+"Indeed!  You brought your dress with you, I presume.  Still I think,
+Miss Mildred, that you might have honoured your hostess by making the
+same preparation for yourself which she thinks it necessary to make for
+her own daughters."
+
+"Why, dear me," cried Mildred, still too much swallowed up with
+amazement at the extraordinary suggestion to have room for indignation.
+"Why, dear me, I'd be only too delighted to order a dozen if I could;
+but where on earth should I get the money to pay for them?  I never had
+a dress like that in my life.  I don't suppose I ever shall have one!"
+
+"Then what are you going to wear, if one may ask?"
+
+Poor Mildred smoothed down the folds of the blue crepe dress.  The romp
+in the garden had not improved its condition; it was looking sadly
+crumpled and out of condition, but it had been washed a dozen times, and
+had a delightful knack of issuing from the ordeal a softer and more
+becoming shade than before.  With certain little accessories, already
+planned, she did not despair of a satisfactory result.
+
+"Well, I thought Mrs Faucit would be so kind as to allow the laundress
+to get up this dress.  It is the only suitable thing I have, and I was
+going to--"
+
+"Suitable!  That thing!  Do you mean to say that you seriously intend to
+wear the dress you have on to a picnic given by Mrs Newland?"
+
+Lois bit her lip and turned aside.  Bertha began hastily to cover up the
+dainty white folds which showed the crumpled blue in such unfavourable
+contrast.  Mildred drooped her eyelids, and answered with that
+smouldering calm which precedes a storm.
+
+"I am.  That is certainly my intention."
+
+"And you mean to say you have no better dress than that in your
+possession?"
+
+"This is my best dress.  Yes!  I have no better."
+
+"And your mother actually allowed you to come away with such a wardrobe!
+Preposterous, I call it!  People who cannot provide for themselves
+respectably have no business to accept invitations, in my opinion!"
+
+Now it happened that this morning Lady Sarah had risen with a bad
+headache, one of the consequences of which had been to make her even
+more fault-finding towards Mildred than usual.  The old discussion about
+her hair had been resumed after breakfast; she had been reproved for
+leaving the door open; for shutting the door, for speaking too loudly;
+for mumbling so indistinctly that it was impossible to hear; for one
+imaginary offence after another, until finally she had run away in
+despair and taken refuge with the children in the garden.  It was not
+only the present annoyance, therefore, it was the accumulated irritation
+of the morning, with which the girl had to fight at this moment, and the
+conflict was too hard for her strength.
+
+As she herself would have described it, she went hot and cold all over,
+something went "fizz" in her brain, and the next moment she leapt down
+from the table and confronted Lady Sarah with flaming cheeks and eyes
+ablaze with anger.
+
+"And--who--asked--_your_--opinion?  What business is it of yours what I
+wear?  I didn't come here on your invitation--I was asked by Mrs
+Faucit, and so long as she is satisfied you have no right to say a word.
+How dare you find fault with my mother before my face?  How dare
+you question what she thinks right to do? you--you unkind,
+interfering,--_disagreeable old woman_!"
+
+There was an awful silence.  Lady Sarah appeared transfixed with
+astonishment; her jaw fell, her eyes protruded from their sockets.  The
+twins instinctively clasped hands, and Mrs Faucit, arrested, in the act
+of re-entering the room, by the sound of the last few words, stood
+motionless in the doorway, her face eloquent of pained surprise.
+
+Mildred glanced from one to the other.  She was trembling from head to
+foot, her heart beat with suffocating throbs.  For one moment she
+succeeded in maintaining her attitude of defiance; but when she met the
+grave scrutiny of Mrs Faucit's eyes, she burst into a storm of tears
+and rushed from the room.  Reaction had set in, and her own irritation
+was as nothing to the shock which followed as she realised that--fresh
+from Mrs Faucit's praise and her own congratulations,--she had given
+way to an outburst of temper which must have horrified all who heard it.
+
+She crouched down on a corner of her bedroom sofa and sobbed as if her
+heart would break.  The old intolerable pangs of homesickness woke up
+again and dragged at her heart; the longing for her own place, her own
+people, above all, for the precious mother who always sympathised and
+understood.
+
+Perhaps Mrs Faucit would be so disgusted that she would send her
+straight back to school.  Well! at this moment the thought of the quiet
+house and of Mardie's loving kindness was by no means unwelcome.  At
+school, at least, everyone was kind--the very servants went out of their
+way to give her pleasure--there was no terrible Lady Sarah to stare at
+her through gold-rimmed eye-glasses, and criticise and find fault from
+morning till night.
+
+It was in reality less than ten minutes, but it seemed like hours to
+Mildred before the door opened to admit Bertha and Lois, and a fresh
+outburst of sobbing was the only notice which she took of their
+entrance.
+
+Bertha slipped an arm round her waist.  Lois sniffed in sympathy from
+afar.
+
+"Never mind her, Mil!" she cried.  "Don't cry.  You couldn't possibly
+have anything prettier than the blue crepe," but at this Mildred raised
+her face in eager protest.
+
+"Oh, I'm not crying about that!  I don't care a rap about the dress,
+but--but she made me so furious.  It had been going on all morning, and
+I c-couldn't bear it any longer.  I am so ashamed.  I can't bear to
+think of it.  I don't know what I said."
+
+The twins exchanged furtive glances.
+
+"You called her `an interfering, disagreeable old woman'!" whispered
+Bertha with bated breath, glancing half fearfully at the door as she
+spoke.  "I--I felt as if the world were coming to an end!  As if the
+ceiling would fall down over our heads!  Oh, Mil, you should have seen
+her face!  I never saw anyone look so astonished in my life, but the
+curious part of it is that I don't think she was angry.  She knew she
+had no right to speak as she had done, and I believe she admired you for
+being indignant.  Perhaps you will be better friends after this."
+
+"No, we won't!" said Mildred, setting her chin stubbornly; "because I
+won't, if she will.  I'll never forgive her.  It is not Lady Sarah I
+care about--it is your mother.  Oh, I can't forget her face, she looked
+so shocked!  She stared at me with such horrified eyes.  Is she awfully
+angry, do you think?"
+
+"I haven't spoken to her.  She sent us out of the room directly after
+you left, but she didn't seem angry, only quiet and grieved."
+
+"Oh, oh, oh! what shall I do?  I hate people to be grieved!  I detest
+it!  It's fifty thousand times worse than being angry.  If people are
+angry you can defend yourself and take your own part, but if they are
+`grieved' you can only feel a wretch, as if you had no right to live.
+Oh, dear, what will she think of me!  It was only the other day she was
+saying that I kept my temper so well, and now I've disgraced myself for
+ever!  She will never, never forgive me!"
+
+Before the girls could say anything by way of comfort, Mrs Faucit
+herself entered the room and walked straight towards the couch on which
+Mildred was sitting.  She looked pale and distressed, but the manner in
+which she put her arm round the girl's waist was certainly not
+suggestive of anger.
+
+"I am so very sorry that this scene should have occurred, Mildred," she
+said; "but I have been having a talk with Lady Sarah, and she takes all
+the blame upon herself.  She is sorry that she spoke as she did, and I
+think she will be more considerate of your feelings for the future.  I
+said the other day that I knew you must often feel provoked, and how
+pleased I felt to know that you controlled your temper.  I wish, dear,"
+she sighed heavily, "I wish you had gone on as you began!  It would have
+been a great relief to me; but perhaps it was too much to expect.  You
+are young and impulsive."
+
+"Oh, no, no! don't make excuses!  I am a wretch, I know I am!" sobbed
+Mildred penitently.  "It was hateful of me to speak rudely to a guest of
+yours--so old, too.  Mother would be miserable if she knew.  But it was
+so maddening!  I bore it as long as she found fault with me, but when
+she began criticising Mother--saying that she didn't dress me properly,
+and had no right to allow me to come here,--I couldn't keep quiet any
+longer--I couldn't!  It made me too furious.  I was obliged to explode."
+
+"I know!  I know.  I am sorry the girls' dresses were ever brought
+down--that was the beginning of it all.  Mildred, dear, I hope you won't
+think any more of what Lady Sarah said on that subject.  I noticed how
+pretty your dress looked when you first arrived, and we will see that it
+is made fresh and bright again for the picnic.  It came into my mind to
+order a dress for you like the ones which the girls are to wear, but I
+was not sure if you would like it, or if it would seem as if I were
+dissatisfied with what your mother had provided."
+
+Mildred threw her arms round the speaker with one of her bear-like hugs.
+
+"All, you know! you understand!" she cried; "you are so different.  It
+was sweet and lovely of you to think of it, but I'd rather not.  If
+people don't care to have me in my old clothes, I'd rather stay away
+altogether.  But I have ever so many pretty things stored away in my
+box--new gloves,--ribbons,--a lace collar.  I can make myself quite
+respectable.  Don't be worried, Mrs Faucit, please!  I'll try to be
+good and not vex you again.  Do please take your forehead out of
+crinkles."
+
+Mrs Faucit laughed at that, and stroked the golden head with a
+caressing hand.  She had grown very fond of her young visitor during the
+last few weeks, and found her coaxing ways quite irresistible.
+
+"Dear Mildred!" she cried, "Poor Mildred!  I am so sorry that your visit
+should be spoiled in this way, but remember what I told you the other
+day, dear, and try to avoid harsh judgments.  It is a great concession
+for Lady Sarah to have acknowledged herself in the wrong in a dispute
+with a girl of your age; you must show how generous and forbearing you
+can be in return.  I hope that after this you may be really good
+friends."
+
+Mildred said nothing, but her lips closed with an expression which
+Bertha and Lois recognised.  They had seen it at school on more than one
+memorable occasion.  Mildred was the dearest girl in the world, but she
+did not find it easy to forgive when her animosity had been aroused.
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+THE FRENCH MAID.
+
+No further reference was made to the unpleasant scene in the library.
+Lady Sarah seemed disposed neither to offer nor to demand any sort of
+apology.  Unnoticed by the girl, however, she constantly scrutinised her
+through her gold eye-glasses with a curiosity which was almost kindly.
+It seemed an impossibility for the old lady to refrain from interfering
+in the affairs of others, but for the next few days Mildred was allowed
+to go her own way undisturbed, while she devoted her attention to the
+daughters of the house.
+
+She assured Mrs Faucit that Lois's right shoulder was higher than the
+left, and insisted that she should be made to lie down for two hours
+every afternoon; she gave it as her opinion that, as the girls were now
+fifteen, they should not be allowed to go about unattended by a
+chaperone; and last, and worst of all, she showed the Dean a prospectus
+of a German school, to which she advised they should be sent at once.
+
+The twins were in despair, and many were the indignation meetings which
+were held in the school-room or the bedrooms overhead, while poor Mrs
+Faucit exhausted herself in the effort to smooth down both parties and
+to keep her husband in ignorance of what was passing before his very
+eyes.  Meantime the date of the picnic drew nearer and nearer, and in
+connection with her own preparations Mildred met with an unexpected
+display of kindness on the part of no less a person than Cecile herself.
+
+The blue dress returned from the laundress looking crisper and fresher
+than ever in its newly-ironed folds, and when Mildred went up to her
+room the same afternoon she beheld Cecile seated by the dressing-table
+busily engaged in sewing the lace-frills round neck and sleeves.
+
+"Why, Cecile--you!" she exclaimed, and the Frenchwoman raised her
+shoulders with a shrug of protest.
+
+"Ah, Mademoiselle, what would you have?  They are so careless, these
+servants.  Mary would iron the lace as it was, sewn in the dress, but I
+say, `No, it is impossible so to do it well.  You take it off,' I say,
+`and I shall sew it on.  Mademoiselle Mildred shall not go to the picnic
+with frills untidy while I am in the house.'"
+
+"But that is very kind of you, Cecile.  I'm sure I am awfully obliged,"
+said Mildred warmly.  She leant up against the corner of the
+dressing-table and watched the play of the nimble fingers with admiring
+eyes.  "How quickly you do it, and how well!  It would take me about a
+month to pleat the lace into those teeny little folds.  I just run it up
+and draw the string, but of course it is far nicer this way.  The old
+dress looks quite new again.  It seems to enjoy being washed."
+
+Cecile held the skirt at arm's-length, looking at it with critical eyes.
+
+"It is a pretty colour--soft and full--just the right shade to suit
+Mademoiselle's complexion.  When it has the sash and the lace collar it
+will have an air quite _chic_, but it could still be improved.  If
+Mademoiselle will, I shall stiffen the sleeves and make them more--what
+you say?--fashionable!  It would be much better so."
+
+"I don't know, I'm sure.  It would be very nice, but have you time,
+Cecile?" asked Mildred doubtfully.  "You have work to do for Lady Sarah,
+and I should not like to interfere with that.  It is very kind of you to
+offer, but--"
+
+"Oh, indeed, I have hours to myself--hours!  I am killed with ennui in
+this quiet house.  It would be a charity to give me occupation.  It is
+still quite early; if Mademoiselle would put the dress on now, for one
+little minute, I could then see what is required, and put in a stitch
+here and there."
+
+Mildred unfastened her dress with mechanical fingers.  She was
+bewildered by this sudden display of amiability on the part of Lady
+Sarah's maid, and filled with remorse for her former misjudgments.  She
+had taken a dislike to Cecile from the moment when they had first met in
+the corridor and the Frenchwoman's sharp eye had scanned her from head
+to foot, as if taking in every detail of her attire and appraising its
+value.  Once or twice, moreover, upon entering Bertha's room
+unexpectedly, she had discovered Cecile turning over the ornaments upon
+the dressing-table, and had not felt altogether inclined to believe the
+explanation that she was looking to see if there was anything she could
+do for mademoiselle; yet if Cecile were now so anxious to serve herself,
+why should she not have been equally well-disposed to Bertha?
+
+Mildred argued out this question with herself as she stood before the
+glass while Cecile's clever fingers busied themselves about her dress,
+putting in a pin here, a pin there, achieving thereby an improvement
+which seemed almost miraculous in the girl's unsophisticated eyes.
+
+While she worked Cecile kept up a string of flattering remarks.
+
+"I must fasten the hair up for a moment to see the back.  Ah, the
+beautiful hair! what a coiffure it will make some day!  See how it goes
+itself into a coronet like a queen's!  It is easy to fit a dress when
+one has the perfect model.  You have the back like an arrow,
+Mademoiselle.  Most young ladies get into the bad habits at school, and
+bend their shoulders like old women, but you are not so.  There are many
+princesses who would give thousands of pounds to have a figure like
+yours."
+
+"They must be very silly princesses, then," said Mildred brusquely.  How
+was it that she could not get over her dislike to Cecile--that the touch
+of her thin fingers, the sight of her face in the glass brought with
+them a shiver of repulsion?  Cecile had nothing to gain by spending time
+on the renewal of a school-girl's frock, and could therefore only be
+actuated by kindness.  If it had been anyone else who had done her such
+a service Mildred would have been overflowing with thanks, but for some
+mysterious reason her heart seemed closed against Lady Sarah's maid.
+All the same she was annoyed at herself for such ingratitude, and made a
+gallant effort to carry on a friendly conversation.
+
+"Have you been maid to many other ladies, Cecile, before coming to Lady
+Sarah?  You have been with her only a short time, I think." Cecile
+sighed lugubriously.
+
+"Three months, Mademoiselle.  Oh, such long, slow months!  Never before
+have I known the time so long.  Before then I was with two beautiful
+young ladies in London.  They went out every night--to two or three
+balls very often,--and always they were the most admired among the
+guests.  Miss Adeline married an officer and went to India.  She was
+like you, Mademoiselle--the same hair, the same eyes--you might be her
+sister.  She would that I should go to India too.  `Oh, Cecile!' she
+say, `what shall I do without you?  No one shall ever suit me as you
+have done.'  But I dare not risk the journey, the heat, the fatigue.
+Then Miss Edith shared the same maid with her mama, and I came to my
+lady here.  Ah, what a difference!  The house of Madame, it is like a
+grave--no life, no sun.  With my young ladies it was all excitement from
+morning till night--luncheon parties, afternoon parties, evening
+parties, one thing after another, and no time to feel _triste_, but now
+all is changed.  We drive in a closed carriage for amusement, and go to
+bed at ten o'clock, just when my ladies were dressing for their balls,
+and the evening should begin."
+
+"Well, but, Cecile, I should think you would like it better," said
+Mildred guilelessly, "because if they did not come home until two or
+three in the morning it must have been terribly tiring sitting up for so
+long, and very bad for your health.  Now you can go to bed at eleven and
+have nothing to disturb you until the next morning."
+
+Cecile lifted her head from her work and darted a keen glance at the
+girl's face.  Her eyes were small and light, and it seemed to Mildred as
+if at this moment there was something unpleasantly cunning in their
+expression, but perhaps it was only the result of the strong light which
+fell upon her through the open window.
+
+"Oh, Mademoiselle, it is one thing to rest, and another to allow some
+one else to do the same.  My lady goes to bed but not to sleep.  She
+lies awake for hours, and she is cross sometimes, but so cross!  She
+speaks so shrill, so loud, one would suppose a calamity should happen.
+It is bad for the nerves to hear such sounds in the night-time.  I have
+been afraid for Mademoiselle lest she should be disturbed.  Her windows
+are so near, and when the house is quiet--"
+
+"Oh, you need not be afraid for me!  I sleep like a top when I once
+begin.  Sometimes we have had dreadful thunder-storms in the night at
+school, and half the girls have been sitting up shivering in their
+dressing-gowns, but I have known nothing about them until the morning.
+Besides, it is such a long way round to get to Lady Sarah's room, that I
+never realised before that her windows were so near."
+
+Mildred craned her head as she spoke to look out of the window.  As she
+had said, the entrance to Lady Sarah's room was some distance along the
+corridor, and round a corner, but, as it was situated in a wing of the
+house which stood out at right angles from the main wall, the window was
+but a few yards from Mildred's own.
+
+"I never realised that I was so near!" repeated the girl dreamily, and
+as she busied herself with the folds of the skirt Cecile frowned and bit
+her lip, as though annoyed with herself for an incautious remark.
+
+"I am glad you have not been disturbed.  I feared it might be so, but if
+Mademoiselle should any time hear a noise in the night she will
+understand--she will go to sleep again quite satisfied.  I am always
+there in my lady's dressing-room, ready to go when she calls."
+
+"Oh, yes, I'll remember!" said Mildred easily; "but I am not in the
+least likely to hear.  I can't understand how people can go on talking
+after they are in bed.  When I go home for the holidays I sleep with my
+mother, and I have so much to say that I try hard to keep awake, but I
+can't.  We talk for a little time, then she says something, and I repeat
+it over and over to myself, trying to understand what it means.  It is
+probably the simplest thing in the world, but it seems like Greek, and
+while I am still trying to puzzle it out, I fall asleep and remember
+nothing more till the next day."
+
+"Oh, yes! but you are young and my lady is old.  Sleep does not come to
+her as to you, and she is so that she cannot bear anyone to have what
+she has not.  If she is miserable, it is her pleasure that I also should
+suffer."
+
+Mildred knitted her brows and stared at the maid in disapproving
+fashion.
+
+"I don't think you ought to talk like that, Cecile," she said boldly.
+"You are always paying Lady Sarah compliments to her face, so you ought
+not to abuse her behind her back.  Besides, I don't think she is cross
+to you.  She seems kinder to you than to other people.  We all notice
+it."
+
+"Ah, yes!" replied Cecile scornfully; "my lady can be amiable enough
+when it suits; but to live with all day long, to have her as mistress--
+ah, Mademoiselle thinks she can understand what that means!  But wait a
+little time, wait until Mrs Faucit shall go away and my lady is left in
+charge, then you shall see!  You will feel for me then for what I
+undergo!"
+
+Mildred's eyes widened in astonishment.
+
+"But she is not going away!  What do you mean by saying such a thing?
+How could she go away when she has visitors in the house, and her
+children are home for the holidays?"
+
+The Frenchwoman flushed and looked strangely embarrassed.
+
+"Oh, I mean nothing--nothing!  I had the impression that it was said.
+The servants talk among themselves, Mademoiselle.  But you know best--
+you are of the family.  It has been a mistake.  See, then, Mademoiselle,
+I have made what I can.  Do you find the dress is better?"
+
+"It looks ever so much nicer, Cecile.  I can't imagine what you have
+done to make such an improvement.  I am awfully obliged to you for all
+your trouble."
+
+"It is nothing, Mademoiselle, not worth speaking about.  When the lace
+is on and the ribbon--big, full bows instead of the little, old ones--
+you shall see what a difference I make.  They will say no one can tie a
+bow like a Frenchwoman; and even in Paris, where I learn my business, no
+one in the room could make one like me.  I had them always to arrange,
+on the handsomest dresses.  Mademoiselle shall see the lovely bows I
+shall make--"
+
+Cecile lifted a roll of shimmering, satin ribbon from the table as she
+spoke, and shaking out a length of two or three yards, began to gather
+it up in her fingers.  It was a beautiful ribbon, soft and thick, and of
+the richest texture, but Mildred flushed as she looked at it, and her
+voice sounded sharp and disapproving.
+
+"What ribbon is that?  It's not mine!  You are not going to put that on
+my dress, Cecile!"
+
+"But yes, Mademoiselle, I was told to do so.  My lady rang the bell and
+asked what I did.  When I said I helped with the dress of Mademoiselle
+Mildred, she took the ribbon from her drawer and asked if it should be
+useful.  `Use what you will,' she say to me.  It is a beautiful ribbon,
+Mademoiselle, and goes well with the lace.  You look not satisfied, but
+believe me, when you see it arranged, you will agree--"
+
+"I wasn't thinking about that.  I dare say it would look very nice, but
+I can't take it, Cecile," said the girl firmly.  "I am glad you have not
+cut it up, for it will not be spoiled.  I am much obliged to Lady Sarah,
+and you may tell her so, but I prefer to use my own things.  If the old
+ribbon is too shabby, I can do without altogether; but it's no use
+putting that on, for I won't wear it."
+
+Cecile stared in amazement, but there was no mistaking the girl's
+sincerity.  Her eyes were bright with anger, she held her head at a
+defiant angle, and her lips were pressed into a thin scarlet line.
+Mildred was disgusted to hear that Lady Sarah had any share whatever in
+Cecile's services.  She wished with all her heart that she had not
+accepted the Frenchwoman's offer.  Now if the dress looked at all
+respectable on the day of the picnic, Lady Sarah would take the credit
+to herself, because she had allowed her maid to make alterations; and
+how dare she send contributions of her own, and give instructions as to
+what was to be done with them, without asking permission!
+
+Cecile was quite awed by the young lady's air of indignation, and
+carried away the white ribbon without a word of protest.  She evidently
+informed her mistress of what had occurred, for after dinner the same
+evening Lady Sarah detained Mildred on her way to the garden, to
+question her on the subject.
+
+"So, Miss Mildred, my maid tells me that you refused to use the ribbon
+which I gave her for your dress.  Is that true, may I ask?"
+
+"Yes, quite true.  I told Cecile to tell you that I was very much
+obliged for the offer, but that I preferred to wear my own things."
+
+"You are very independent.  Was the ribbon not to your fancy?  Have you
+one of your own which you prefer?"
+
+"Oh, no, it was beautiful; it could not have been nicer!"
+
+"Your own is not so good?"
+
+"Not nearly so good, Lady Sarah!"
+
+Cecile might well have said that Mildred had the good, straight back, if
+she had seen her at this moment.  Her cheeks were flushed, but her mouth
+had the stubborn look which her friends knew so well.
+
+"You refuse, then, simply because you object to receiving anything from
+me?"
+
+"I am much obliged to you, Lady Sarah, but I prefer to wear my own
+things."
+
+"Oh, well, well!" sighed the other wearily; "I won't argue with you, my
+dear.  Do as you please.  I meant to do you a kindness, but, if you
+choose to take it in this way, there is no use saying anything about it.
+Don't let me keep you.  Run away to your friends."
+
+She turned towards the window as she spoke, and the sun shone full on
+her face.  It looked tired and grey, and very, very old; and the thin
+hands crossed on her lap, how shrivelled they were!--they trembled all
+the time as though they could not keep still.  Mildred walked out into
+the garden, a pang of compunction at her heart.  Dreadful to be so
+old!--not to be able to see without spectacles; to hear,--unless people
+spoke at the pitch of their voices; to walk,--unless supported by a
+stick; to feel cold even on the hottest day; to feel tired the first
+thing in the morning;--how dreadful!  Lady Sarah had looked sad too--not
+merely cross, as usual, but really and truly sad and lonely.
+
+Suppose she had seriously meant to be kind--to show that she regretted
+her interference in the past?  Mildred's face clouded over as this
+thought passed through her mind, but before she crossed the lawn to join
+her friends her lips stiffened into the old, obstinate line.
+
+"I don't care.  She had no right to send in her scraps of finery,
+without even asking my permission.  And after saying that Mother didn't
+provide for me properly, too!  No, I am not a bit sorry; I would do the
+same thing over again!"
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+AN UNEXPECTED DEPARTURE.
+
+The day before the eventful picnic the family were seated round the
+breakfast-table, when the Dean looked up from a letter which he had just
+been reading, and said mildly, and as if he were making the most natural
+request in the world:
+
+"Evelyn, will you get ready to go up to town by the five o'clock train
+this afternoon?  The Archbishop has appointed our interview for three
+o'clock to-morrow.  You had better pack for two or three nights."
+
+Mrs Faucit gave an irrepressible start of consternation.  Was ever
+anything so unfortunate!  The interview with the Archbishop had been
+talked of for months past; half a dozen letters had been exchanged on
+the subject within the last fortnight; the question which was to be
+discussed was of pressing importance.  She realised at once that the
+appointment must be kept, but her heart sank as she looked at the three
+young faces beside her--aghast, and speechless with horror.
+
+"Oh! is it really to-morrow?" she cried.  "Are you quite sure, dear?
+Look again! you so often make mistakes in the date.  Does he say
+Wednesday the sixteenth, or Wednesday the twenty-third?"
+
+The Dean peered at his letter once more.
+
+"He says: _I shall be able to meet you on Wednesday next, sixteenth
+instant_.  It is certainly to-morrow.  Why, Evelyn; is there any reason
+why--er--?"
+
+"It is the day of Mrs Newland's picnic.  I have accepted her
+invitation--"
+
+"Oh, is that all!"  Her husband drew a sigh of relief.  "You must write,
+of course, and explain your absence.  She will understand, and it will
+be a relief to you, dear.  I--er--I have some recollection of being at a
+picnic myself years ago.  Uncomfortable occasion!  Er--earwigs--meals on
+the grass--baskets to carry.  You would have been very tired.  Much more
+comfortable at the Metropole!"
+
+Mrs Faucit could not restrain a smile in spite of her concern.
+
+"Just so, Austin; but that is not the light in which the young people
+look at it.  I was to chaperone the girls.  I am thinking of them, not
+of myself.  It will be a great disappointment."
+
+The Dean put up his eye-glasses, and stared at the three girls in turn.
+His own daughters were white with suppressed emotion, but Mildred's face
+was tragic in its agony of suspense.  She did not say a word, but she
+turned her great, grey eyes upon him, piteous as those of a child who
+sees a surgeon standing over her, knife in hand; and as he met that
+glance the Dean rumpled his hair in perturbation of spirit.
+
+"Dear me! dear me! this is very distressing.  Disappointed, are they?  I
+don't want the children to be disappointed, Evelyn!  Let them enjoy
+themselves.  If they appreciate that sort of thing, let them go by all
+means.  Why should they stay away because you are obliged to do so?
+Mrs Newland will look after them."
+
+"My dear Dean!"  Lady Sarah shook out her serviette, and raised her
+voice to an even shriller note than usual.  "My dear Dean, you don't
+realise what you are saying.  The girls are not children any longer;
+they were fifteen their last birthday.  In another two years, or three
+at the outside, they will be in society.  You cannot possibly allow them
+to go to a large affair of this sort without a chaperone.  Mrs Newland
+will be occupied with her guests, and will have no time to look after
+them.  If Evelyn is obliged to go away, let the girls stay at home.
+They can surely bear a little disappointment.  They will have bigger
+ones than this to bear as they go through life!"
+
+"True, Sarah,--quite true; but that is the more reason why I wish to
+postpone them as long as possible.  I don't want the girls to miss their
+pleasure, Evelyn!  Can nothing be done?  Can't you think of some plan,
+dear? you are so clever.  Is there no other alternative?"  And the
+kindly Dean looked at his wife with a face full of anxiety.
+
+Mrs Faucit smiled back at him in the peculiarly sweet, reassuring
+manner which she reserved for himself and for Erroll, the youngest
+member of the family--a mischievous little rascal, who employed himself
+in getting into trouble all day long, and in rushing to throw himself
+upon his mother's tender mercies after each fresh exploit.
+
+"I think we might surely hit on some plan between us!" she said
+brightly.  "Such a number of clever people!  For instance, it ought not
+to be altogether impossible to provide another chaperone for the girls.
+There are more people than my important self in the town, and Mrs
+Newland will be quite willing to accept a representative under the
+circumstances."
+
+"If you mean me, Evelyn, I am not at all sure that I feel equal to the
+exertion.  If they were going to drive from door to door, and have lunch
+in an hotel in reasonable fashion, it would be different; but with so
+many changes, and the whole day to be spent in the open air--"
+
+"Oh, my dear Sarah, I never thought of such a thing for a moment!  It
+would be too much to ask.  You would be terribly fatigued."  Mrs Faucit
+had caught the echo of three separate gasps of consternation, and she
+spoke with unusual emphasis.  "Oh, no, indeed!  I think it will answer
+all purposes if Miss Turner takes the girls in charge.  Mrs Newland
+knows her, and it would be a pity to look any further when we have
+someone so suitable in the house.  That will be a very good arrangement,
+won't it, girls?"
+
+Then for the first time the girls' lips were opened, and they spoke.  Up
+till now the tension of suspense had been so great that they seemed
+scarcely able to breathe.
+
+"Oh, yes, Mother, it will be delightful!"
+
+"Oh, yes, Mrs Faucit, splendid!  Miss Turner will be nicer than anyone
+if you can't go yourself.  But are you really obliged to go away?  Why
+can't you stay at home when it is only for two days?"
+
+"My dear Mil! and allow Father to go by himself!"  Bertha waxed quite
+mischievous in the relief of the moment.  "You don't know what an
+absent-minded creature he is!  If Mother were not there to look after
+him, he would go to meet the Archbishop without a hat on his head, or
+stand gloating over an old bookstall in the street, until he forgot all
+about his appointment.  Mother has to be very careful not to let him out
+of her sight.  She writes down all that he wants to say on a piece of
+paper, and leads him up to the very door of the room.  Then she says:
+`Now, Austin, do you know whom you are going to see?'  Father stares
+blankly, and says: `Er--er--I really er--.'  And then she says very
+slowly and distinctly: `You--are--going--to--see--the--Archbishop!
+You--want--to--see--him--very--badly--indeed.  Here is a list of the
+things you want to say!'  Then she thrusts the paper into his hands,
+pushes him inside the door, and shuts it firmly behind him.  It's quite
+true!  I know, because I have been with them."
+
+"Eh? eh? eh?  What this! what's all this?"  The Dean pushed his chair
+from the table, and stared at his daughter with a comical expression of
+amused embarrassment upon his face.  "Upon my word, Sarah, I believe you
+are right!  The children are growing up--they are growing up!  I--I
+never heard such an accusation in my life!  Absent-minded!  Am I indeed,
+Miss Bertha?  I see a great deal more than you imagine, young lady!"
+
+His lips were twitching, his grave eyes twinkling with amusement.  He
+was a Dean and a scholar whose fame was world-wide; who wrote books the
+very names of which Mildred was unable to understand, but he had shown
+himself so considerate of the young people's enjoyment, he looked, at
+the moment, so kindly and mischievous that a sudden wave of affection
+swelled within the girl's heart.  Up she leapt, and bounding across the
+room to his side, threw her long arms round his neck, and kissed him
+rapturously upon the lips.  It was an extraordinary liberty to take, but
+what followed was more extraordinary still, for the Dean returned the
+salute with the utmost alacrity, and keeping one arm round Mildred's
+waist, twirled off with her towards the door in something that was
+perilously,--perilously like a polka!
+
+When he reached the doorway, and saw the old butler coming along the
+passage, he shook himself free in a moment, and shuffled off to the
+study, looking as sober as if he had never indulged in a game of romps
+in his life; but when Mildred turned back into the room the twins were
+clapping their hands in delight, Lady Sarah struggling in vain to
+restrain a smile, while Mrs Faucit was laughing softly to herself, with
+a glimmer of tears in her eyes.
+
+There are two sorts of tears, however, and these of the Dean's wife were
+certainly not those of sorrow.  Perhaps she was thinking of the days
+when she was a girl herself, and of a certain lanky schoolboy who spent
+the vacations with her brothers, and who behaved in such harum-scarum
+fashion that an onlooker would have been ready to prophesy anything of
+him, rather than that he should have developed into a sober dignitary of
+the church!
+
+But a day of busy preparation lay before Mrs Faucit.  She had no time
+to waste in day-dreams, so excusing herself to Lady Sarah, she carried
+the girls upstairs to her room, where she proceeded to read them a
+gentle lecture on their behaviour for the next few days.
+
+"Now do, dears, try to help me while I am away!  I shall be miserable if
+I feel that things are not going on well at home, and it all depends
+upon you.  Make up your minds that you will not allow little things to
+annoy you, and set yourselves to be cheerful and forbearing.  The rest
+will follow as a matter of course.  Bertha, I leave the children to
+you--see that they are happy.  If any accident or sudden illness should
+happen, telegraph at once for me.  Lois, you must take my place in the
+house.  Look after the flowers, and see that a fire is lit in the small
+drawing-room if the weather is at all chilly.  Mildred, I have a task
+for you too.  I wonder if you can guess what it is?  I am going to leave
+Lady Sarah in your care!  Yes, really, dear--I mean it!  I ask you as a
+favour to look upon her as your special charge while I am away--to see
+that she is comfortable and has all she wants.  She is very old,
+Mildred, and in spite of her sharp manner, she appreciates kindness.
+Now remember, dear, I trust you!"
+
+"Oh, dear!" groaned Mildred; "I wish you wouldn't!  I don't like it a
+bit.  I'd much sooner arrange the flowers--mayn't I arrange the flowers,
+Mrs Faucit, please, and let Lois look after Lady Sarah?  You said
+yourself I had quite a gift for arranging flowers!"  Then, as Mrs
+Faucit only smiled and shook her head, she went off into fresh
+lamentations.  "It's perfectly miserable that you have to go away at
+all.  Things do happen so nastily in this world!  Just as I was going
+home Robbie fell ill, and now the very day before the picnic this letter
+arrives!  It's horrid.  Cecile said you were going away, but I never
+believed you would!"
+
+Mrs Faucit looked up sharply.
+
+"Cecile said!" she repeated.  "Cecile!  What did she know about it,
+pray?  The date of the interview was so uncertain that I have never
+spoken of it in the house.  I hoped that, as it had been so often
+deferred, it might not come off until the end of the holidays.  What did
+Cecile say?"
+
+"Oh, not much!" replied Mildred easily.  "Something about finding out
+what Lady Sarah was like when you went away and she was left in charge.
+I said you were not going away, and she muttered something about hearing
+the servants talk.  I really forget what it was."
+
+Mrs Faucit wrinkled her brows, and looked perturbed.  How could Cecile
+know of plans which had only been discussed between husband and wife?
+Could it be that the Dean, in his carelessness, had left a letter on the
+subject lying about, and that Cecile had been unprincipled enough to
+read the contents?  It was the only explanation of which she could
+think, and it was sufficiently unpleasant to send her downstairs to
+interview Lady Sarah with a fresh weight on her mind.
+
+"Will you be kind enough to take care of the keys for me, Sarah?" she
+asked.  "There are a good many valuables in the chest in the
+strong-room, and I should feel more comfortable if you were in charge.
+James will apply to you for anything he needs, and pray do not hesitate
+to give him your instructions in return.  By the way, Mildred has just
+been telling me that Cecile spoke to her some days ago of our leaving
+home!  I can't imagine how she can have known about it.  I am afraid I
+have never got over my first dislike to that woman, Sarah.  I don't like
+her prying ways, and I don't like her manner to you.  You are not given
+to spoiling your servants, but it seems to me that you are allowing
+Cecile to get the upper hand; and if that goes on, it will be a great
+mistake.  She does not impress me as a woman whom it is safe to
+indulge!"
+
+Lady Sarah gave an impatient toss to her head.
+
+"Oh, my dear Evelyn!" she cried; "it is easy for you to talk.  You have
+your husband and children, and are not dependent upon a servant.  I am!
+Cecile has it in her power to make my comfort or misery, and she is a
+capable woman, who understands my requirements.  I have suffered so much
+from inefficient maids that I cannot afford to quarrel with one who
+really suits me!"
+
+She evidently did not appreciate her friend's interference, and Mrs
+Faucit realised that there was no more to be said on the subject.
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+THE PICNIC AT LAST.
+
+The next morning Mildred awoke to find the sun pouring into her room
+through the uncurtained windows.  A moment of sleepy confusion, and then
+remembrance awoke.  It was the day of the picnic--the all-important day
+which had been dreamt of so long, and with such ardent anticipation.
+She jumped out of bed and ran to the window, to see if the sky fulfilled
+the promise of the sunshine.  Well, not quite! the blue was broken by
+ominous clouds, which the wind drove along at a speed too rapid to be
+reassuring.  Mildred knew that radiant mornings had an unpleasant knack
+of settling down into gloomy days, but she was so anxious to think the
+best that she would not allow herself to dwell upon unpleasant truths.
+It was enough to put anyone in good spirits to dress in that delicious
+blaze of sunshine, and the meeting at the breakfast-table took place
+under the brightest auspices.
+
+"Isn't it a perfectly scrumptious day?  Doesn't it make you want to skip
+and dance?" cried Mildred enthusiastically.  "I feel as if I could do
+anything when the sun shines like this--it's so inspiring--it makes you
+feel so strong, and light, and well.  I could jump over a mountain, I
+believe, if there was one in my way."  She gave a spring over a stool as
+she spoke, by way of illustrating her words, and might possibly have
+proceeded to further exploits had not Lady Sarah entered the room at
+that moment and taken her seat at the head of the table.
+
+She walked with an unusually brisk tread, and her face looked less lined
+and tired than usual.  The brilliant morning had evidently its effect
+upon her as well as on the younger members of the household, and so
+amiable did she appear that the girls went on with their rhapsodies
+undeterred by her presence.  They laughed, and chattered, and joked in
+overflowing spirits, and when Lady Sarah found a chance to put in a
+question about the scene of the day's excursion there was a race to see
+who could answer first, and use the greatest number of superlatives in
+doing so.
+
+"A pretty place?--Oh, exquisite!  The most beautiful little village that
+was ever seen!  A river?--Yes, indeed, the prettiest river in the world,
+splashing over rocks, and with the sweetest little shady paths on either
+side!  An inn?--Rather!  Like an inn in a picture--oak walls, and blue
+china in corner cupboards.  Walks?--Everywhere!  In every direction?--
+Impossible to take a wrong turning where every step of the country was
+beautiful!"
+
+After these rhapsodies had continued for several moments Lady Sarah's
+face began to assume an expression of curiosity, and she glanced out of
+the window from time to time, as if mentally considering some question.
+
+"I am not quite sure about the day, the clouds look low.  If it were
+more settled I really think I should like to come with you myself
+instead of Miss Turner."
+
+Had a bomb-shell suddenly exploded in the room its occupants could
+hardly have been more bewildered than they were by the utterance of
+these few, quietly-spoken words, "I should like to go with you myself."
+The girls held their breath, and felt stupefied with horror.  They had
+never dreamt that this would be the result of their ecstatic
+description; they had imagined that the subject of a chaperone was
+settled once for all, and it was a terrible awakening.  Bertha was the
+first to recover her composure.  She had a strong consciousness of the
+importance of her position as the Dean's eldest daughter, and in her
+mother's absence was determined not to shirk her responsibility.
+
+"But--but, Lady Sarah, Miss Turner has been asked.  Mother has written
+to Mrs Newland.  Do you think it would do to alter the arrangement?"
+she asked earnestly, and Lady Sarah tossed her head in derision.
+
+"My dear child, what nonsense you talk!  I think Mrs Newland would have
+little hesitation in accepting me in Miss Turner's place; I would
+explain it to her myself."
+
+"But we go for a walk in the afternoon, a long walk.  You would be
+terribly tired."
+
+"Nothing of the sort.  I am not quite paralysed yet.  Say no more on
+that score, if you please.  I am able and willing, and shall be glad of
+the chance of seeing the place; but, of course if you prefer the
+governess--"
+
+What could be said in answer to such a question as this?  The usages of
+polite society forbidding a candid avowal of the truth, Bertha could
+only protest feebly in a weak, broken-spirited voice.
+
+"Very well, then, we will consider it settled.  We do not leave the
+house until half-past eleven, by that time I shall see what the day is
+going to do.  It is beginning to cloud over, and I don't like the look
+of the sky.  If it shows any disposition to rain I shall certainly not
+risk an attack of rheumatism by walking on damp grass, but if it keeps
+fine I shall be ready when the carriage comes round.  Miss Turner will
+no doubt be very glad to stay at home."
+
+She swept from the room, and the scene which followed can be better
+imagined than described.  Mildred paced up and down, her cheeks aflame,
+her lips pressed together to keep back a torrent of angry words.  Lois
+had hard work not to cry outright, while Bertha sat down on a chair, and
+clasped her hands in despair.
+
+"I know what it means!--I know what it means!  She went with us once
+before.  She made me stay beside her all day long, and wear mufflers
+round my neck; and sit inside the coach coming home.  She wouldn't let
+me have an ice at lunch, or sail on the lake--or--or--do anything nice!
+I'd just as soon give it up at once, and stay at home.  It will be all
+spoiled!  I sha'n't enjoy it a bit!"
+
+She was very near tears herself, but for once in her life Mildred made
+no response.  There was a strange, half-triumphant smile upon her lips,
+and she continued to pace up and down the room, and to take no part in
+her friend's lamentations.
+
+By and by Bertha and Lois went away, with dejected mien, to attend to
+the various duties with which they had been charged.  Bertha to the
+nursery, to give orders that some little friends should be invited to
+take tea with the children, Lois to arrange the basket of flowers which
+the gardener brought up to the house.  About ten o'clock the sky clouded
+over in a threatening manner, and it seemed as if Lady Sarah's prophecy
+was about to be fulfilled, but when the carriage came round to the door
+at half-past eleven, the sun was shining again in all its splendour, and
+the air felt warm and fragrant.
+
+Neither of the girls had seen anything of Mildred since parting from her
+in the breakfast-room, but at the last moment she came strolling
+leisurely across the hall, looking such a picture of youth and beauty as
+made them hold their breath in admiration.  The blue dress looked as
+fresh and dainty as if it was being worn for the first time, a soft
+white sash was twisted round the waist, and a bunch of ox-eye daisies
+tucked into the folds of muslin round the neck.  The golden hair fell in
+wavy masses down her back, and the shady hat dipped forward over her
+charming face.  The Dean's daughters looked colourless and insignificant
+beside her, but they were too radiantly happy to care about their own
+appearance, for it was Miss Turner who came forward to seat herself
+beside them in the carriage, while Lady Sarah stood within the porch
+speaking her farewells in tones of ill-concealed irritation.
+
+"Most rash and foolish I call it!  I heard the rain distinctly, I tell
+you, and not satisfied with hearing, I put my head out of the window and
+felt several drops upon my face.  Have you taken umbrellas and
+mackintoshes?--No?  Now, my dear Lois, pray, don't make objections to
+everything I say.  Your mother is away, and I feel the responsibility on
+my shoulders.  Miss Turner, will you be good enough to see that
+umbrellas and mackintoshes are taken, and good thick cloaks in case of
+cold?  You will be starved to death on the coach coming home."
+
+The echo of the fretful voice followed the carriage as it drove away
+from the door, and as Bertha waved her hand, a shadow of compunction
+fell over her face.
+
+"She is disappointed!  Poor old lady; she looks lonely, standing there.
+She daren't come because of her rheumatism; but just look at that sky,
+and imagine anyone saying that it had been raining; so positive about
+it, too.  She must have been dreaming."
+
+"Well, for goodness sake don't begin to be miserable now, Bertha,
+because she is _not_ coming!  Two hours ago you were nearly crying
+because she was.  You said you wouldn't enjoy yourself at all, and would
+just as soon stay at home.  For goodness sake be cheerful, and don't
+grumble any more!"
+
+Mildred's voice sounded so irritable that her friends stared at her in
+surprise.  She looked exceedingly pretty and charming, but not quite
+like herself all the same.  It was difficult to say wherein the
+difference lay, yet both Lois and Bertha recognised it at once.  The air
+of exuberant happiness, which was one of her chief characteristics, had
+disappeared.  She looked strained, worried, ill at ease.
+
+All through the earlier part of the day this curious depression seemed
+to hang over Mildred's spirits.  At every quiet opportunity she
+whispered an eager "Are you enjoying yourself?" into her friend's ear;
+"You are enjoying yourself, aren't you, Bertha?" but it was not until
+lunch was laid out upon the grass, and the merry scramble for knives and
+forks had begun, that she herself seemed able to enter into the fun with
+a whole heart.  From that time onward she was her own merry self, and
+Bertha had the pleasure of seeing her prophecy fulfilled, for before the
+afternoon was over, Mildred, in her old blue dress and renovated hat,
+had become the principal personage in the party.  The ladies were
+charmed with her because she was so pretty, and had such winsome,
+coaxing little ways; the gentlemen, because she was a thorough
+school-girl, free from every trace of young-ladyish affectation.  It
+delighted them to see her race up the hillsides, or skip from rock to
+rock across the river bed, and when the time came for the return drive,
+there was quite a struggle for the seat by her side in the coach.  The
+gentleman who gained it was, in Mildred's estimation, the most
+interesting of the number.  He was very tall, and so thin that his
+clothes hung upon him in baggy folds.  His skin was burnt to a dull
+brown colour, and had a curious dried-up appearance, but his blue eyes
+shone with a boy-like gleam.  Mildred could not make up her mind whether
+he were old or young, but as he remarked, in the course of conversation,
+that he had just returned from a fifteen-years sojourn in Ceylon, and
+that he had left England shortly after his twenty-first birthday, she
+was able to calculate his age with little difficulty.
+
+"I am interested in Ceylon.  Do tell me all about it!" she said.
+Whereat her companion smiled, and said that was a "large order."  He
+proceeded, however, in easy, chatty manner to give some interesting
+accounts of the country, and his own adventures therein.  He told, for
+instance, of how darkness fell suddenly upon the land, and the tiny
+streams swelled in an hour to the magnitude of a river; how, when
+returning from a friend's bungalow one evening, the oil in his lantern
+had given out, and he had been compelled to crawl on hands and knees
+along the dangerous road; how, on the borders of a forest, he had seen
+two snakes standing erect in deadly combat, and could remember a flight
+of white butterflies, three miles in length and of such density that
+they obscured the sun as with a cloud.  He told stories of his
+elephants, too; how they had worked for him in building the big
+tea-factory on which he had been engaged, dragging the heavy stones up
+the hillsides, and pushing them into their own particular niche, with
+their ponderous feet.  How steadily they worked, and with what
+persistence, until the bell rang at four o'clock, when they instantly
+turned tail, ambled off to their lines, and refused to do a stroke of
+work until the next morning.  "Fifteen years!" he sighed; "fifteen
+years!  It is a good slice out of a man's life.  When I went out, I had
+dreams of making my fortune in a few years and coming home to spend it
+in England, but the days of rapid fortune making are over, and I shall
+probably end my life in Ceylon.  I wasn't much older than you are now,
+Miss Mildred, when my guardian packed me off to an office in the city,
+and I was obliged to sit copying letters at a desk from morning till
+night.  Bah! how I hated it.  I made up my mind to go abroad the moment
+I was twenty-one, and could claim my money, but when the time came, I
+felt pretty bad at leaving.  I had a special chum, with whom I lived and
+worked, and played, and shared every joy and sorrow.  It was a terrible
+wrench to part from him--and from someone else--the lady who is now my
+wife!  You have been introduced to her, I think; there she is in the
+blue dress, sitting in the front of the other coach."
+
+"With the brown hat?  Yes, I know; I like her.  She looks awfully
+sweet."  Mildred nodded her head decisively, and her companion's eyes
+twinkled in response.
+
+"Oh, yes! she's quite satisfactory.  Bullies me a little now and then,
+you know--between ourselves; but one can't have everything in this
+wicked world.  Well, you see, she came out to me in due time.  But
+before there was any talk of that, another curious thing had happened.
+I was sitting in front of my bungalow one afternoon, very low and
+homesick, and tired to death after a long day's work.  I was wondering
+if I should ever live to get back to the old country, or to see my
+friends again, when suddenly a man came round the corner of the road,
+and marched up the garden path.  He was an Englishman--that was seen at
+the first glance; he was tall, and broad, and had a peculiar way of
+holding his shoulders.  I stared at him, not knowing if I were awake or
+asleep, and when he was within a dozen yards, he raised his head to look
+at me, and it was my chum!--the very fellow I had been thinking of five
+minutes before, and despairing of ever seeing again!"
+
+"Good gracious!  What did you do?  What did you say?"
+
+Mr Muir smiled.
+
+"Do?  Say?  I called out `Halloa!' and he called out `Halloa!' and we
+shook hands and went into the bungalow.  That seems strange to you,
+doesn't it?  If you had been in my place, and one of your school-fellows
+had appeared upon the scene, you would have behaved rather differently,
+I imagine!"
+
+"Rather!" cried Mildred; "I can't think how you can have been so calm!
+If I had been there, and had seen Bertha coming, I'd have whooped like a
+red Indian, and rushed down, and simply smothered her with kisses.  Men
+must be awfully cold-blooded."
+
+"I don't know about that.  There are different ways of expressing one's
+emotion.  A grip of the hand goes a long way sometimes.  Well, I was
+fortunate, you see, for I had my chum with me once more.  He had been as
+lonely without me as I without him, and had made up his mind to come and
+join me.  We bought an estate between us, and now have a factory of our
+own.  I was grieved to see these good people drinking Chinese tea this
+evening.  I believe some wiseacres pretend that it is good for the
+digestion, but what is that compared with encouraging the poor planters
+in Ceylon?  Remember, Miss Mildred, I rely upon you to drink nothing but
+Indian tea for the rest of your life."
+
+"Oh, I will!" promised Mildred readily.  "I am quite interested in
+Ceylon now, because of you, and of another planter who was a friend of a
+great friend of mine.  She told me a story about him only a few weeks
+ago.  He wasn't so fortunate as you.  He was quite alone, and he tried
+to grow quinine--cinchona, you call it, don't you?  All the other
+estates suffered from blight, except his, and he was promised ever so
+much money for it--a fortune--but just when he was so happy, thinking of
+coming home, the disease came on his estate too, and everything died
+away before his eyes.  All his work was lost, he had to begin over
+again, and dig up the land to plant tea instead."
+
+"Now, I wonder who told you that story!"  Mr Muir cried.  "I knew a
+fellow who had exactly the same experience.  Curiously enough, he came
+home in the ship with me.  We only landed a week ago.  Do you mind
+telling the name of your informant?"
+
+"No, of course not.  Why should I?  It was one of my school-mistresses--
+Miss Margaret Chilton.  She and her eldest sister keep the school to
+which we all go--Bertha, and Lois, and I.  We were talking of
+disappointments one day, and she told me this story as an illustration."
+
+Mr Muir threw back his head, and began to laugh in a soft, amused
+fashion, most mystifying to the hearer.
+
+"Talk of coincidences!" he cried.  "Talk of coincidences!  Why, Miss
+Mildred, it is the very man of whom I was speaking.  Isn't that a
+curious thing?  I knew him intimately, and he has told me stories too--
+about Miss Margaret Chilton among other people.  And she is your
+school-mistress?  Tell me now, what is she like?  I have heard so much
+about her that I am interested to hear."
+
+"She is a darling!"
+
+"Er--so I was given to understand!" said Mr Muir drily.  "And as to
+appearance?  Dark or fair, tall or short, plain or good-looking?"
+
+Mildred reflected.
+
+"She has brown eyes," she said slowly.  "Oh, you may think that is not a
+good description, but it is; because when you see Mardie's eyes, you
+don't notice anything else.  They are so clear, and sweet, and lovely,
+and they look straight at you, as if they could see through and through,
+but so gently and kindly that you don't mind it a bit."
+
+Mildred opened her own eyes at her companion as she spoke, with a
+comical imitation of Miss Margaret's expression, which made him laugh in
+spite of himself.
+
+"I see!  I see!  Well, I shouldn't wonder if I were to have the pleasure
+of meeting Miss Chilton one of these fine days.  If I do, I am sure I
+shall recognise her by the description."
+
+At this point the coach drew up before the railway station, and the
+party separated to return to their various homes.  Mr Muir whispered a
+word or two in his wife's ear, and they came together to the window of
+the carriage in which the girls were seated, to wish them a last
+farewell.
+
+"_Au revoir_, Miss Mildred!" he cried, his blue eyes twinkling with
+amusement.  "I am not going to say good-bye, for I expect to meet you
+again, on a still more interesting occasion."
+
+"I haven't the least idea what you mean, but I hope we shall!" returned
+Mildred.
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+A TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE.
+
+When the girls reached home they found Lady Sarah awaiting them in the
+drawing-room.  Her hands were lying idly on her lap, a white shawl was
+wrapped round her shoulders, and the sight of her tired, dispirited face
+brought with it a throb of compunction.  It was not easy to continue the
+rhapsodies in which they had indulged all the way from the station in
+the presence of one who had, so evidently, found the day long and
+uninteresting.  Lady Sarah, however, had many questions to ask, and
+received each answer with an echo of the old complaint.
+
+"If I had only gone with you!  It has been a beautiful day, I should
+have taken no harm.  If it had not been for that unfortunate shower I
+should have seen it all, instead of sitting here the whole day long,
+wearying to death."
+
+"Dear Lady Sarah, haven't you been a drive?  Why didn't you order the
+carriage, and go a nice long drive into the country?"
+
+"What is the use of driving by yourself?  No, thank you, Bertha, I
+prefer to stay at home.  Cecile? no--not for worlds.  I think something
+must be wrong with the girl's nerves.  It seems as if it were impossible
+for her to sit still the last few days.  It fidgets me to be near a
+person who jumps up and down like a Jack-in-the-box.  There is some
+supper waiting for you in the dining-room, my dears.  You had better
+take it and let us get off to bed.  The day has been long enough."
+
+The girls turned away obediently and hurried through their meal, not to
+delay the old lady any longer than could be helped.  They had been
+successful in getting their own way, and, as is usual under the
+circumstances, conscience was beginning to reproach them for
+selfishness, and to suggest that it might have been possible to have had
+their own enjoyment, and to have allowed Lady Sarah to have had hers
+into the bargain.
+
+When the twins went into Mildred's bedroom to say good-night, Bertha
+could not refrain from putting these sentiments into words.
+
+"Poor Lady Sarah, she does look dull!  She has had a lonely day.  I must
+say I feel rather--mean."
+
+"I feel mean too," said Lois; but at this Mildred interrupted with an
+impatient protest.
+
+"What in the world have you to feel mean about?  You have done nothing.
+It was not your fault.  You did nothing to prevent her going."
+
+"No, but I didn't want her to come, even when she said it would be a
+pleasure.  I was glad when she was prevented; I thought the shower was
+quite a providence."
+
+"Don't, Bertha!" cried Mildred sharply.  Her face flushed to a vivid
+pink, she seemed to struggle with herself for a moment, then said
+decisively, "Look here, I am going to tell you something.  You will be
+shocked, but it's done now, and can't be undone, so there is no use
+saying anything about it.  There was no shower.  It was a trick.  I
+played the hose upon her window."
+
+A gasp of horror sounded through the room as the twins uttered a
+simultaneous question, "You--_what_?"
+
+"I played the hose upon her window.  I'll tell you all about it.  You
+had both been crying in the dining-room, saying that your pleasure was
+spoiled, and that you wouldn't enjoy yourselves a bit.  Then you went
+out of the room and I strolled into the garden.  I heard a noise at the
+window and saw Lady Sarah standing in her room.  I didn't want her to
+see me, so I slipped behind a clump of trees, and the hose was lying on
+the ground all ready.  It darted into my head in a moment that I could
+make her think it was raining, and I took it up and played it gently on
+the panes,--just like the very beginning of a shower.  By and by I heard
+the window open and saw her stretch out her hand; then I gave a flick
+round the corner, so that she got quite a nice little bath.  The window
+shut with a bang, and I went on pattering until it was all over drops.
+She stood in the background looking out--"
+
+"Oh, Mildred!" echoed the Dean's daughters in horrified chorus; "Oh,
+Mildred! how could you, how dare you?  Suppose anyone had seen you."
+
+"Oh, I took good care of that!  No one saw me at all--except Erroll."
+
+"Erroll?  Good gracious!  And did you warn him not to tell?"
+
+Mildred shook her head.
+
+"No; Mother never allows us to tell the children anything like that.
+She says it makes them deceitful.  He will forget all about it; children
+always do."
+
+"They generally remember when you want them to forget.  Oh, Mildred, I
+wish you hadn't done it!  I don't like it a bit.  It makes me feel worse
+than ever."
+
+"You can't feel anything like as bad as I do," retorted Mildred
+miserably.  "I was sorry the moment after I had done it.  I went
+upstairs and stayed in my own room, for I thought I had done enough
+mischief, and had better keep out of the way.  I was really disappointed
+to see Miss Turner in the carriage instead of Lady Sarah.  I thought I
+shouldn't enjoy myself at all--it worried me so; but then I got
+interested and forgot all about it--until we came home."  Her voice sank
+into a disconsolate whisper, "I don't know what your mother will think,
+when she put her into my charge, too, but there are two days more; I'm
+going to be awfully nice, and try if I can't make up."
+
+"We will all try," said Bertha heartily.  She saw that Mildred was even
+more distressed than she would admit, and was anxious to say something
+comforting before retiring for the night.  "We have had our good time
+to-day, she shall have hers to-morrow.  Don't worry any more, Mil dear,
+but try to think of something nice that we can do for her as a surprise
+before Mother comes back."
+
+"It's awfully good of you not to scold me, Bertha.  I know you must be
+disgusted with me, though you won't say so.  You would never have done
+such a thing yourself."
+
+"No, because I am never in a hurry.  I take a long time to make up my
+mind about anything, good or bad.  If you had waited five minutes to
+think about it, you would never have played that hose; but never mind,
+Mil, some time there will be a brave thing to do, and you will have
+risked your life and done it, while I am still trembling on the brink.
+It works both ways, you see!"
+
+Bertha patted her friend on the arm with an air of gracious
+condescension, and bidding her an affectionate good-night, returned to
+her own room.
+
+Left to herself, Mildred began to undress in listless, disconsolate
+fashion.  She was tired with the day's exertions, and sorely troubled
+about the escapade of the morning.  Lady Sarah's face haunted her.  If
+Bertha and Lois were shocked, what, oh! what, would be their mother's
+feelings?  "She will be grieved in earnest this time," Mildred sighed to
+herself.  "Oh, goodness, I wonder why it is that I am always getting
+into trouble!  I mean to be good, I have the best intentions...  Mrs
+Faucit will look at me as she did that day when I flew into a passion.
+I hate to be looked at like that.  Great, solemn eyes, as if her heart
+were broken!  And it was all my fault this time...  I wish I could be
+calm and deliberate.  I'll begin to-morrow, and count twenty to myself
+before I say a single word."
+
+She crept into bed and laid her head upon the pillows with a weary sigh,
+but sleep was long in coming, and even when the lids closed over the
+tired eyes, the groans which forced themselves through the closed lips,
+the nervous twitches of the limbs, showed that an uneasy conscience
+pursued her into the land of dreams.
+
+How long she slept Mildred never knew, but it seemed as if at one moment
+she was lost in unconsciousness, and at the next she was awake--wide,
+wide awake,--with her heart beating like a sledge-hammer, and an unusual
+chilling of fear in her veins.  Something had aroused her--what was it?
+The echo of the sound rang in her ears, shrill, piteous, beseeching.
+What could it have been?  Mildred sat up in bed and looked searchingly
+round the room.  The light was high enough to show the furthest corner.
+The door was closed, the window as she had left it, the sash opened a
+few inches at the bottom; the tick of the little clock on the
+mantel-piece sounded clearly in the silence.  All looked so calm, so
+peaceful, so safe, that Mildred drew a breath of relief and was
+preparing to burrow down again among the clothes, when her heart leapt
+at a repetition of the same mysterious sound.
+
+There was no mistaking it this time.  It was the sound of a voice raised
+in a wail of such bitter, helpless pleading as left the listener
+trembling with nervousness.
+
+In the broad light of day, with friends seated by our sides, it is
+difficult to realise how keenly a sound such as this tells upon the
+nerves in the dark silence of the night, but Mildred was of a fearless
+nature, and after the first shock of surprise, her impulse was to find
+out the source of the alarm, not to hide her head under the bedclothes
+and stuff her fingers in her ears, as many another girl would have done
+in her place.  She slipped out of bed, crept across the room to the
+window, and kneeling on the floor, applied her ear to the open space,
+listening intently.
+
+The windows of the house were dark and lifeless, but as she waited, in
+straining silence, it seemed to Mildred that a faint murmur of voices
+reached her ear.  Now a long level murmur, now a broken effort of
+protest, then again the smooth low voice.
+
+Mildred turned her eye from one side to the other, calling to mind the
+different rooms to which the windows belonged.  Below the
+breakfast-room, above the day nursery, to the right her own
+dressing-room, to the left, in the projecting wing, Lady Sarah's room
+and that of her maid.  Mildred had never realised before how she was cut
+off from the rest of the household, but the conviction that the voices
+must come from this last-named room brought with it a throb of relief.
+Cecile had said that her mistress was often irritably wakeful during the
+night-time, and had warned her of a possible alarm like the present.
+
+If it was only Lady Sarah scolding her maid, there was no reason why she
+should not go back to bed and sleep comfortably, but in spite of this
+conclusion she continued to kneel by the window, for the remembrance of
+those two cries was not easily reasoned away.  She had not been able to
+distinguish the words, but the tone could not be accounted for by mere
+irritability.  Mildred had had ample opportunity of studying the
+different tones of Lady Sarah's voice, but she had never heard this note
+before.  Cecile had declared that her mistress treated her harshly, but
+Mildred, like everyone else in the house, had been inclined to think
+that the opposite view of the situation would be nearer the truth, for
+the old lady seemed in dread of the clever maid, and fearful of
+offending her.
+
+The old distrust of the Frenchwoman, which had been temporarily
+forgotten because of her kindness in the matter of the blue dress, awoke
+afresh in Mildred's breast; she bent her head forward and strained her
+ears to overhear what was going on within that further room.  It seemed
+as if she had been kneeling by the window for a long time, but it was in
+reality only a few minutes, before suddenly, sharply, the cry rang out
+again, to be as quickly stifled, but not before the listener had
+recognised the voice, and the word which it was struggling to say.
+
+"Help!  Help!"
+
+It was Lady Sarah's voice.  She was in trouble, someone was ill-treating
+her, so that she was fain to raise her poor, quivering voice in an
+appeal for help.
+
+Mildred leapt to her feet, while the blood rushed into her cheeks and
+her heart began to beat furiously.  She was not in the least frightened.
+What she felt at that moment was something almost like triumph.  Lady
+Sarah had been committed to her charge, and she was now in danger.  Here
+was a chance of redeeming her misdoings of the day before; an
+opportunity of saving her from threatened danger!  Mildred slipped on
+dressing-gown and slippers and laid her hand on the knob of the door.
+Before she had time to open it, however, a faint rustling from without
+attracted her attention; she listened, and could discern the almost
+imperceptible sound of footsteps coming along the corridor from Lady
+Sarah's room, and towards her own.  Outside her door they paused, and it
+seemed as if the beating of her heart must surely betray her presence.
+But no, they moved on again, the swish of the trailing skirts growing
+fainter and fainter, until it died away in the distance.
+
+Mildred opened the door and peered cautiously into the passage.  All was
+dark and silent, but on the wall above the staircase a faint light
+flickered, now here, now there, as if reflected from a candle carried in
+the hand of someone descending to the hall beneath.  Mildred darted in
+pursuit along the passage, her thick padded slippers aiding her
+characteristic lightness of movement, so that she reached a point where
+she could get the desired view without making a sound that could have
+been heard by the most watchful ears.
+
+It was as she thought.  Someone was creeping downstairs, candle in hand,
+and feeble as the flame was, it was sufficient to light up the sleek
+head, the slight, sinuous figure of Lady Sarah's maid.
+
+Mildred pressed her lips together with a look of comprehension, and
+immediately faced round to retrace her steps with even more speed than
+before.  This time she did not stop short at her own room, but turned
+into the further passage from which Lady Sarah's room was entered.  The
+key was in the lock, for Cecile had carefully fastened the old lady in
+the room before she herself had taken her departure, but Mildred gave a
+fine smile of contempt as she drew it out, and slipped it into the
+pocket of her dressing-gown.  Another moment and she was within the
+room, standing by Lady Sarah's bed and gazing upon the face which lay on
+the pillow with startled eyes.
+
+At the first glance it seemed altogether strange and unfamiliar.  Lady
+Sarah's hair was brown and luxurious--these straggling locks were white
+as snow; Lady Sarah had well-marked brows and regular teeth, but when
+she lifted the handkerchief which covered the face, the brows were
+missing and the lips fell in around toothless gums.  Mildred stood
+transfixed, but even as she gazed, she became aware of a faint, sickly
+odour, which seemed to rise from the handkerchief which she held in her
+hand.  She raised it to her face and shuddered with disgust as the
+remembrance of a dentist's operating-room came swiftly to mind.  That
+wicked Cecile!  Had she been using something to make Lady Sarah
+unconscious?  And was that the reason why she lay so still, and made no
+attempt to open her eyes?
+
+Mildred dared not turn up the gas in case the light might be seen from
+without and excite suspicion, but she peered about the dressing-table,
+discovered a bottle of salts among the litter of silver ornaments, and
+with the aid of this and a plenteous sprinkling of water, managed to
+arouse the old lady to consciousness.  The flattened eyelids opened, and
+Lady Sarah stared upwards with dreamy unrecognising eyes, for in the
+uncertain light the figure of the girl in her white robes and flowing
+golden hair seemed more like a heavenly visitant than a flesh-and-blood
+girl.
+
+"Who,--who,--what are you?" she muttered, and Mildred bent nearer with a
+reassuring smile.
+
+"It is I--Mildred!  Mildred Moore.  I heard you call and came to see
+what was wrong.  Don't be frightened, Lady Sarah.  You know me--you know
+Mildred!  I will take care of you--No one shall do you any harm."
+
+Lady Sarah continued to stare with those dazed, bewildered eyes, then
+suddenly the light of understanding flashed over her face, her fingers
+clasped the girl's arm, and she glanced wildly from side to side.
+
+"Cecile?  Cecile?"
+
+"She is not here, Lady Sarah.  She has gone downstairs.  I saw her go,
+and came in here at once to look after you."
+
+"Gone?  Downstairs?"  Lady Sarah pushed the girl away, and drawing
+herself up in the bed, began groping hurriedly beneath her pillow.  "The
+key?  It is gone--she has taken it!  Oh, Mildred, the key of the safe in
+the strong-room.  I had it here.  I slept with it under my pillow.  She
+tried to take it from me, and I wouldn't give it up.--She is a thief,
+Mildred, a cunning, wicked woman, and when she could not get it from me
+by force, she put chloroform on that handkerchief and held it over my
+face.  She has accomplices downstairs.  They will open the safe and get
+away before anyone knows they are here.  There are valuables of my own
+there besides Mrs Faucit's.  We shall never see them again, and I was
+left in charge.  The wicked woman!  She has been scheming for this.  Oh,
+she is cruel, she is dangerous--she will kill you, child, if she comes
+back and finds you here."
+
+Mildred laughed shortly, and threw back her hair with a scornful
+gesture: "Not she, indeed!  She would be far more afraid of me than I
+should be of her.  But what is to be done, Lady Sarah?  We must do
+something quickly; there is no time to be lost.  Shall I go and waken
+Bertha--the servants--Miss Turner?"
+
+"A lot of nervous women!  What good would they do?  They would go off
+into hysterics, and give the alarm before you could get downstairs.  And
+if you went down, what could you do, children and girls as you are,
+against old practised hands?  Cecile has never planned this by herself.
+There are two or three men downstairs, she let out as much in her anger.
+If you could find James..."
+
+Lady Sarah broke off, and stared into the girl's face with her haggard
+eyes.  It was an intent, questioning gaze, but the girl did not shrink
+before it.  She nodded her head gravely, as if recognising the force of
+the suggestion, and accepting the responsibility which it thrust upon
+her, for James's room was cut off from the rest of the house, and to
+reach it it was necessary to descend to the ground floor, and go along
+the whole length of the passage leading to the servants' hall.
+
+"Yes, of course; James would be the best!"
+
+"You know where he sleeps?"
+
+"Yes, I know."
+
+Lady Sarah leant her head against the pillow, trembling violently.
+
+"You would have to go downstairs, to pass within a few yards of the
+strong-room door--they might see you--and if they did?--No, no!  I
+cannot let you go.  Poor child, poor child!  Your safety is of more
+value than anything they can take.  It is too great a risk."
+
+"Dear Lady Sarah, I am not afraid.  I will creep along so quietly that
+they will never hear me, and once down, it will not take me a minute to
+run along the passage.  Don't try to prevent me, I must go--I must!  I
+couldn't stay quietly here while Mrs Faucit was being robbed.  See!
+here is the key, Cecile left it in the lock.  Get up and fasten yourself
+in, and don't open the door until I come back.  You won't be nervous?"
+
+"Not for myself--no, no!--but for you, Mildred.  No, you shall not go, I
+will not allow it!  Your mother--"
+
+"Mother would go herself.  She is the bravest little creature in the
+world.  I am not afraid.  If they see me I will make a dash for it, and
+scream at the pitch of my voice.  You will hear, the others will hear,
+the whole house will be in a tumult, and they will be glad to escape and
+let me alone.  But I want to take them by surprise, and not let them get
+away.  I'm going now.  There is not a minute to waste.  Be careful how
+you shut the door.  Don't be frightened.  If you hear no noise you will
+know all is well."
+
+Mildred drew the folds of her gown round her, and stepped out into the
+passage.  The lamps were out, but the moonlight poured in by the long
+windows, and saved her from all danger of stumbling.  Round the corner,
+past the door of her own room, along to the head of the staircase she
+crept, so far with nothing more than consciousness of excitement and
+enterprise; but here the dangerous part of her mission began, and she
+paused for a moment to draw breath and consider how she had best
+proceed.  The staircase descended in flights of six steps at a time,
+during two of which only she would be within sight from the hall
+beneath.  One of the steps, she knew, creaked.  Which was it?  In which
+flight?  Stupid not to remember when she had noticed it so many, many
+times!  There was only one thing for it; to tread each step as lightly
+as possible, and to trust that the thieves might be so busily engaged
+that they would not notice such a gentle sound.  She bent down to fasten
+the woollen slippers more closely, then slowly, cautiously began the
+descent.  No step creaked beneath her feet, but when she reached the
+bottom of the second flight of stairs, it was not relief but
+disappointment which she felt, for she realised that the dangerous point
+must now be passed, while she was in sight of anyone who might be
+standing in the hall beneath.
+
+Suppose Cecile had stationed one of her accomplices outside the door of
+the strong-room, to guard against possible discovery?  Suppose with the
+next step forward she found herself confronted by a burly rascal, ready
+to spring forward and silence her cries with a heavy hand pressed over
+her lips?  Mildred set her teeth with the old obstinate expression, and
+stepped determinedly forward.  She had known from the outset that there
+was a certain amount of danger in her mission; she was not to be
+dismayed by the first alarm.  Another moment and she was within sight of
+the strong-room, to discover, with a thrill of relief, that the thieves
+were too busily engaged getting together their spoil to have time to
+play sentry.  A faint light shone from within the half-closed door;
+Mildred held her breath, and could hear a murmur of voices, an
+occasional clicking, as of steel instruments upon a hard substance.
+
+In the rush of indignation which the sound brought with it she trod less
+carefully than before, and the creak which followed filled her with
+dismay.  Good heavens! how loudly it sounded in the stillness!  She
+dared not move a step, but stood crouched against the wall, her gown
+gathered up in her hand, ready at the first sign of an alarm to rush
+back to the upper floor and rouse the servants by her cries; but there
+was no cessation of work within the strong-room, the voices still
+whispered together, the click, click went on as before.  What had
+sounded so sharply in Mildred's ears had in reality been a very faint
+sound, scarcely perceptible at a distance of a few yards, and the noise
+made by their own movements prevented it from reaching the ears of the
+thieves.
+
+The fact that it had not been noticed gave the girl fresh courage, so
+that she almost ran down the few steps that remained, her little padded
+feet falling noiselessly upon the carpet.  She stood now in the hall
+itself; a sharp turn to the right would take her towards James's
+bedroom, but before moving forward she turned with instinctive curiosity
+to cast another glance at the door of the strong-room.  It was
+half-closed,--more than half-closed; the moonlight shone on the polished
+handle, and on the great brass bolts above and below.  If these were
+once slipped into position it would be an impossible task for those
+inside the room to make their escape, for the window was small, and
+protected by iron bars.  If the bolts were fastened the thieves would be
+caught like rats in a trap!
+
+Mildred stood like a figure carved in stone, staring fixedly at the
+door; her heart was beating like a sledge-hammer, the blood tingled to
+her finger ends.  Supposing she went on and tried to awaken James!  His
+door might be locked; he was an old man, probably a heavy sleeper; by
+the time he was aroused and had put on his clothes the thieves might
+have escaped!  They were hard at work; at any moment they might come
+out,--_but if those bolts were slipped_!--A sudden impulse leapt into
+the girl's brain and refused to be shaken off.  A dozen steps to the
+right, a leap forward, one hand on the knob, another raised to shoot the
+bar of brass into its place, a swift, impetuous movement, and the thing
+would be done, the thieves caught red-handed, and Mrs Faucit's
+treasures saved!  "And I can do it," said Mildred to herself, "as well
+as James or anyone else; better perhaps, for I am small and light, and
+they are busy now and unsuspicious.  It is the right time, perhaps the
+_only_ time.  I can do it--I _will_ do it, before I get too nervous,--
+before I have time to think!"
+
+She was nervous enough as it was, poor child, for the fear of failure
+was in her heart, and a terrible dread of those wicked men; but she had
+enough self-possession left to know that it must be now or never, and to
+allow herself no time for wavering.
+
+Cecile and her two accomplices, rifling the safe of its treasures and
+packing the spoil together in convenient fashion for carrying away, were
+all unconscious of the white figure in the hall stealing forward step by
+step, the white face looking out from the veil of golden hair, the
+outstretched hands creeping nearer and nearer to those two strong brass
+knobs.  A little gurgling sob of emotion swelled in Mildred's throat at
+that last crucial moment, her teeth gleamed between her parted lips,
+then with a spring like that of a wild animal she pounced upon the
+handle, and with strength born of excitement slammed the door against
+the lintel, and shot the big brass bar into position.  A howl of rage
+sounded from within as the thieves threw themselves against the door
+with desperate force, but it was too late.  Mildred bent downwards,
+secured the second fastening, and flew off to awaken James, secure in
+the knowledge that, rage and struggle as they might, the strong oak door
+shut them out from escape as surely as the barred window itself.
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+AFTER THE ROBBERY.
+
+There was no sleep for the inhabitants of The Deanery during the
+remainder of that exciting night.  The sudden banging of the strong-room
+door, with the babel which immediately followed from within, would in
+themselves have been enough to alarm the household; but Mildred was
+determined to leave nothing to chance.
+
+She arrived at James's room just in time to meet that faithful servant
+hurrying forth with a greatcoat fastened over his night attire, and
+while he rushed across the garden to arouse the coachman, she turned
+back into the hall, and began to beat a wild tattoo upon the gong.
+
+When Bertha came rushing downstairs a moment later, followed by a flock
+of terrified women-servants, she was horrified by the sight which she
+beheld.  There stood Mildred in her white dressing-gown, her hair hung
+round her face in wild confusion, her eyes gleamed, her long arms swung
+the sticks through the air, and brought them down upon the gong with a
+fierceness of triumph, which had in it something uncanny to the gentle
+onlooker.  She looked strangely unlike Mildred Moore--pretty, merry
+Mildred, so ready to tease and plague, to kiss and make friends, and
+tease again all in a moment.  She was so carried away by the terrible
+excitement of the moment that she had no eyes for what was going on
+around, and seemed perfectly oblivious of the fact that her friends were
+standing by her side.
+
+It flashed through Bertha's mind that Mildred was going mad, and she
+seized hold of the swinging arms in an agony of appeal.
+
+"Mildred, Mildred--don't!  Oh, what are you doing?  We are all here; I
+am here--Bertha!  What has happened? what is the matter?  Don't stare
+like that, you frighten me!  You understand what I am saying, don't you,
+Mildred, dear?"
+
+"I--I--I," began Mildred blankly.  She turned her head and looked at the
+strong-room door, before which James stood on guard, waiting the return
+of the coachman with the policemen; then at the group of women-servants
+huddled on the stairs; last of all in her friend's face, white and
+anxious, and overflowing with sympathy.  "You understand me, don't you,
+Mil?"  Bertha repeated gently, and at that Mildred's tense attitude
+relaxed.  She put her hand to her head as one awakening from a dream,
+and clutching Bertha by the arms, burst into a flood of tears.
+
+"Take me away!" she sobbed; "take me away!" and Bertha led her forward
+into the breakfast-room, followed by a murmur of sympathy from the
+onlookers.
+
+James had found time to give a brief account of what had taken place to
+his fellow-servants, and they were filled with wonder and admiration.
+
+"To come down all by herself, in the dead of night--that child!  She is
+brave and no mistake!  I always liked her--she has such pretty ways of
+her own,--but I never thought she would come out like this.  She seemed
+so careless-like!  Poor child, to see her beating that gong!  She didn't
+know what she was doing.  It's enough to upset anyone.  To fasten that
+heavy door herself!"
+
+Then the conversation took another turn, and busied itself in denouncing
+Cecile and her villainies.
+
+"The deceitful, wicked creature!  That's the end of her smooth tongue
+and her deceitful ways!  Making excuses to poke about all the rooms in
+turn, and pretending to help when it was nothing else than curiosity and
+wicked scheming!  I saw her with a letter of the master's in her hand
+one evening, and she said she had been sent to find it.  So likely, when
+he had half a dozen servants of his own in the house!  Now she will have
+a spell in prison for a change--not the first one either, or I'm
+mistaken.  To think, if it hadn't been for Miss Mildred, she would have
+been off with the pick of the valuables in the house!"
+
+So on and so on, while within the breakfast-room the heroine of the
+occasion was being soothed and petted to her heart's content, Miss
+Turner and the two girls hanging round her, and vieing with each other
+as to who could do most for her comfort.  In spite of her agitation,
+however, it was Mildred who was the first to think of the old lady
+upstairs, and her quick "Who is with Lady Sarah?" made the governess
+start in compunction.
+
+"Oh, my dear, I am so glad you reminded me!  I am ashamed to say I
+forgot all about her.  One is so accustomed to depend upon Cecile."
+
+She hurried away, sending the motherly old cook to take her place beside
+the girls, while the cook in her turn despatched the kitchen-maid to
+provide refreshment for the household.  So it came to pass that at three
+o'clock in the morning several tea-parties were being held in The
+Deanery, the guests thereat presenting a motley appearance in their
+anomalous garments.
+
+When the policemen arrived, Bertha and Mildred refused to go out into
+the hall to see the capture of the thieves; but Lois could not restrain
+her curiosity, and came back with a thrilling account of the two big,
+wicked-looking men who were Cecile's accomplices, and of Cecile herself,
+looking "so white, so terrified, so,--so _old_, that I was obliged to be
+sorry for her, though I tried to be angry!  I expect she wishes now that
+she had gone to bed, and slept quietly, like a good Christian!"
+concluded Lois quaintly; and at that Mistress Cook lifted up her voice,
+and remarked that it would be a good thing if they were all to set about
+doing that without delay.
+
+"It is nearly four o'clock," she said, "and to-morrow's work has to be
+done, thieves or no thieves.  The mistress will get a telegram the
+moment the office is opened, and she will be home by the first train, or
+I'm mistaken.  You young ladies had better get off to bed at once, or
+she will be more upset than ever if she finds you looking like ghosts!"
+
+Miss Turner returned to the room at this moment, and warmly seconded the
+motion.  She had left Mary, the pleasant-faced housemaid, in charge of
+Lady Sarah, who was nervous and unstrung after her fright, and she
+herself proposed to share Mildred's bed for the remainder of the night,
+the twins being left to keep each other company.
+
+Mildred was thankful to accept the offer, for the strain upon her nerves
+had left her so weak that her legs trembled beneath her as she ascended
+the staircase.  Even with Miss Turner lying beside her, sleep refused to
+come until the sun was high in the heavens, and the noises of the day
+rose from the garden beneath.  Then at last, in the blissful sense of
+security brought about by light and sunshine, the tired lids closed, and
+she fell into a deep, restful slumber.
+
+Miss Turner rose and crept softly from the room; Bertha and Lois peeped
+in at intervals of half an hour; Mary prepared two tempting
+breakfast-trays, one after the other, and carried them down untouched,
+for Mildred slept like the seven sleepers, and no one had the heart to
+shorten the well-earned rest.
+
+Shortly before one o'clock a cab drove up to the door, and the Dean and
+Mrs Faucit hurried into the house.  They looked anxious and perturbed,
+and had a great many questions to ask--not about the silver, however,--
+that seemed quite a secondary consideration,--but about the welfare of
+Mildred, Lady Sarah, and the children, and as to what had been done with
+that poor, unhappy Cecile.  Miss Turner assured them in reply that the
+children were as happy and as naughty as ever; that Lady Sarah was
+rather nervous, but otherwise none the worse for her adventure, and that
+Mildred had been sound asleep since seven o'clock in the morning.
+
+"I must go up and see her at once--the dear child! the dear, brave
+child!" cried Mrs Faucit warmly; and she hurried upstairs, the Dean
+following, shaking his head in meaning manner, and treading on tiptoe as
+he entered the room, and advanced to the bedside.
+
+Mildred lay fast asleep, her hair falling over the pillow in shining
+golden tangles; while one arm was thrown over the counterpane, the other
+tucked under her head, so that her cheek rested in the hollow of her
+palm.
+
+There were dark shadows beneath her eyes; and she looked so white and
+spent, so unlike her usual radiant self, that Mrs Faucit's eyes
+overflowed with tears, and she bent involuntarily to press a kiss upon
+her lips.
+
+The scream with which Mildred started up in bed made the two hearers
+fairly leap back in amazement.  The sudden awakening was too much for
+the disordered nerves, and the soft touch had brought with it a hundred
+nightmare dreads.  When she saw who was standing beside her, she calmed
+down in a moment, and apologised in shamefaced manner.
+
+"Oh, Mrs Faucit, I am so sorry I startled you!  I had just shut my
+eyes, and I thought it was--something dreadful--I don't know what
+exactly!  How did you get back?  What time is it?  Is breakfast ready?
+Oh, I am so glad you are here!  It is all right!  I shut the door--they
+can't get out!--"
+
+"Yes, dear, yes--I know!  Don't think about it.  We will have a long
+talk to-night when you are rested, but try to go to sleep again now.  I
+am so vexed with myself for disturbing you!"
+
+"I can't sleep.  I've tried, but it's no good.  I've been awake all
+night!" sighed Mildred pitifully.  She believed that she was speaking
+the truth, but in reality she was so sleepy at the present moment that
+she hardly knew what she was saying.  She raised pathetic eyes to the
+Dean's face, and inquired, with a yawn: "Wh-at did the Archbishop say
+about Cecile?"
+
+"Bless me!" cried the Dean in alarm.  "This is terrible--the child is
+wandering!  She doesn't know what she is saying!"  He laid his hand on
+Mildred's forehead, and backed out of the room, beckoning furtively to
+his wife as he went.  Outside in the passage he ruffled his hair in
+helpless misery.
+
+"Her head is burning, Evelyn! the child is in a fever!  Something must
+be done at once.  I don't like to see her suffering.  Er--er--what could
+you give her, dear?  Aconite and belladonna?  What do you say to aconite
+and belladonna--every half-hour?"
+
+He looked so comical with his ruffled hair and distended eyes, that his
+wife could not restrain a smile.
+
+"Oh, she will be all right, dear, after a day's rest!" she said
+reassuringly.  "I will keep her in bed, and not allow her to talk too
+much.  You need not be anxious; Mildred is too healthy to be upset for
+more than a few hours!"
+
+"But I should try the belladonna!  I should certainly try the
+belladonna!" said the Dean urgently.  He shuffled along the passage, but
+before his wife had time to re-enter the room he was back again, his
+face alight with inspiration.
+
+"Evelyn, I was thinking!  A gold watch and chain--the same as we gave
+the girls at Christmas.--How would that do, eh?  We might present them
+to her as a small--er,--acknowledgment of--er,--gratitude!  What do you
+think of that?  Does it strike you as a good idea?"
+
+"Capital, Austin!  Much better than the belladonna!" cried Mrs Faucit.
+
+She patted him approvingly upon the shoulder, and the Dean went off to
+his study rubbing his hands, and chuckling to himself, like a kindly,
+innocent child, which indeed he was, despite all the learning which had
+made him famous.
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+FRIENDS AT LAST!
+
+There was a constant coming and going at The Deanery during the whole of
+that day, and the very atmosphere seemed full of excitement.  Mrs
+Faucit, however, kept Mildred a prisoner in her own room, gave her an
+interesting book to read, and forbade the subject of the robbery to be
+mentioned in her hearing, with the result that by evening she was
+herself once more, chatting with the girls, and only lapsing into
+melancholy at the remembrance of poor, unhappy Cecile.
+
+The next morning Mildred saw Lady Sarah for the first time since the
+eventful moment when she had started on her search for James's bedroom.
+
+The old lady was sitting in her favourite corner by the drawing-room
+window, wrapped in shawls, and supported by pillows, for at her advanced
+age such an experience as she had known was not easily outlived, and as
+Mildred paced the garden walks with her friends, she received a message
+to the effect that Lady Sarah wished to see her alone for a few minutes,
+as she had something particular to say.
+
+"My thanks are due, Most kind and generous maiden, unto you!" quoted
+Lois, from a play which had been performed at school at the beginning of
+the Christmas holidays, and Mildred gave a little laugh of complacency.
+
+The quotation sounded appropriately in her ears, for she had no doubt
+that she was summoned to hear grateful acknowledgment for the help which
+she had given on the night of the attempted robbery.  As she walked
+across the lawn towards the house, she was rehearsing the scene to
+herself, after a habit of her own on occasions like the present.  "My
+dear Mildred!  How can I thank you sufficiently!"  Lady Sarah, she
+imagined, cried enthusiastically.
+
+"Oh, pray, don't mention it!  I have done nothing at all!"
+
+She screwed her face into the very smile of polite protest with which
+she would give her answer, and was proceeding to invent an emphatic
+disclaimer from Lady Sarah, when she came face to face with the Benjamin
+of the household--little, mischievous Erroll, who was strolling about
+the garden in search of adventure.
+
+He wore a holland blouse, and absurd little knickerbockers about six
+inches long, from beneath which his bare legs emerged brown and sturdy.
+
+A scarlet cap was perched on the back of his head, and he swung his arms
+as he walked with the air of a Grenadier Guard, and a very fierce and
+warlike one at that.  Mildred pinched his ear as she passed, as a mark
+of affectionate remembrance, whereupon Erroll lifted his funny little
+face to hers, and volunteered a piece of information.
+
+"I telled Yady Saraw about ze pump!"
+
+"The pump!"  Mildred's heart gave a leap of apprehension.  She seized
+the child by the arm and held him firmly until he had answered her
+question.  "What pump?  What do you mean, Erroll?"
+
+"Wat zo pumped ze water wif, on ze window!" said Erroll pleasantly.
+
+He evidently had no idea that Mildred would be discomposed by the
+intelligence, and was a good deal astonished at the hasty manner in
+which she shook him off and resumed her walk to the house.
+
+Here, indeed, was a changed position.  She was going to be scolded, not
+thanked--called to account for misdeeds, not praised for valour.
+Mildred pressed her lips together, and her eyes shone with a gleam of
+anger.
+
+The more exciting events of the last two days had thrown the picnic into
+the background, so that she had almost forgotten the unfortunate
+incident to which Erroll had referred.  It had troubled her greatly at
+the time, but since then she had had an opportunity of "making up",
+which should surely have condoned any previous offence.  "Lady Sarah
+need not have said anything about it; even if she were told.  She might
+have forgiven a little thing like that, when I have perhaps saved her
+life," she told herself angrily.  "I believe she is glad to have
+something to blame me for, so that she may avoid saying anything nice or
+grateful!"
+
+Mildred felt thoroughly cross and out of sorts, as was not altogether
+unnatural under the circumstances.  When one has been treated as a
+heroine for a couple of days, it comes as an unpleasant shock to find
+one's self suddenly dragged down from the pedestal and compelled to
+appear in the character of a culprit.  Mildred felt it very hard indeed,
+and the softened feeling with which she had thought of the old lady
+during the last forty-eight hours vanished at once, and gave place to
+the old bitter enmity.
+
+Lady Sarah had seen the girl's encounter with Erroll, so that she was at
+no loss to understand the sudden change in her expression, as she drew
+near.  They looked at one another in silence for several minutes--Lady
+Sarah with her brows drawn together, yet on the whole more anxious than
+angry; Mildred erect as a dart, her head thrown back in defiant fashion.
+
+"Is this true, may I ask, what the child tells me--that you played the
+hose on my bedroom window the other morning, in order to make me believe
+it was raining?"
+
+Lady Sarah sat upright on her chair, her hands clasped together on her
+lap.  The morning light gave a livid hue to the worn features, the bones
+in her neck seemed more prominent than ever.  "But it is not my fault if
+she is old," was Mildred's obstinate comment.  "She can't blame me for
+that, I suppose?"
+
+"Yes, it's quite true."
+
+"It is true!  You heard me say that I was afraid of my rheumatism, and
+tried to persuade me that it was raining so that I might stay at home.
+You knew I was anxious to go, and you deliberately set to work to
+prevent me.  Nice behaviour, indeed!  I wonder you have the audacity to
+look in my face and acknowledge it!"
+
+"I never tell lies," said the girl proudly, and Lady Sarah interrupted
+with a harsh laugh.
+
+"No; you only act them, I suppose.  It never struck you that it was
+acting a lie to go out of your way to deceive an old woman and make her
+stay at home on false pretences, did it?"
+
+Mildred started.
+
+"No, it never did.  I did not think of that.  If I had, I would not have
+done it."
+
+"And why did you do it?  To prevent my going to the picnic, of course;
+but why were you so anxious about that?  What harm would it have done if
+I had been there?"
+
+There was an unwonted strain of anxiety in the sharp voice, and the
+answer came but slowly.
+
+"Oh, I don't know!  We had been looking forward to the picnic for the
+last week.  We had done nothing but talk about it.  Of course we didn't
+want to have it all spoiled."
+
+"As it would have been by my presence?"
+
+"Y-es."
+
+Mildred did not exactly relish saying so many unpalatable things, but
+all the same there was a kind of satisfaction in being obliged to tell
+this disagreeable old woman what was thought of her.  Disagreeable and
+ungrateful, too!  Had she forgotten all that had happened on the night
+of the picnic that she could greet her deliverer without one word of
+thanks?
+
+A wave of emotion passed over Lady Sarah's face as she heard that
+decisive answer.  Her throat worked, her face was full of wistful
+appeal, as she looked at the unrelenting, girlish figure, but Mildred's
+eyes were cast down, and she saw nothing.
+
+"In what way were you afraid I should spoil your pleasure?"
+
+"Oh--in every way!  You would have made us stay beside you all the time
+and forbidden us to run about; or--or sit on the outside of the coach,
+or--or speak to anyone--or do anything we liked.  You said that we ought
+to come home by an early train.  You wanted us to wear cloaks when we
+were boiling with heat.  You would have corrected us before the others,
+as if we were little children.  Oh!" cried Mildred impulsively, as all
+the fears of two days earlier came suddenly to remembrance, "it would
+have been miserable!"
+
+Silence.  Mildred shuffled uneasily from one foot to another, rolled her
+handkerchief into a ball, and felt supremely uncomfortable.  She had
+been irritated into speaking with unbecoming warmth, but the words had
+no sooner passed her lips than conscience began to prick.  She longed
+for Lady Sarah to say something sharper, more unreasonable than ever, so
+that she might feel that she was the injured person, and get rid of this
+horrible feeling of guilt.  But Lady Sarah did not speak.  Was she too
+angry to find words?  Was she gathering her energies for an outburst of
+indignation?  The silence grew oppressive.  Mildred longed to be allowed
+to rejoin her companions, and raised her eyes with impatient defiance.
+
+Mercy!  What was this that she saw?  This pitiful, huddled-up figure,
+these trembling hands and quivering features down which the salt,
+difficult tears of age were trickling?  They could never, never belong
+to the self-possessed and fashionable lady of a moment before!
+
+Mildred gave one gasp of horror, and threw herself on her knees beside
+the chair.
+
+"Oh! what have I said? what have I said?  Oh, the wicked, wicked,
+detestable creature that I am!  Lady Sarah, Lady Sarah, don't cry!  Oh,
+please don't cry, please don't cry!  You will break my heart if you go
+on like this!"
+
+Her voice trembled, she clasped her arms round the old lady's waist, and
+swayed with her from side to side, echoing sob for sob, while ever and
+anon broken utterances fell painfully on her ear.
+
+"--Cumberer of the ground!  Cumberer of the ground!  Alone in the
+world.--No one to care!  Oh, dear Lord, let me be done with it--let me
+die!"
+
+"No! no! no!" cried Mildred, in a paroxysm of remorse.  She folded the
+thin figure more closely in her arms, and laid her soft, warm cheek
+against the quivering face.  "Don't talk like that--don't!  I can't bear
+it.  I can never be happy again as long as I live if you won't forgive
+me, and promise to be friends!  I was sorry the moment after I played
+that trick upon you.  It spoiled my pleasure at the picnic.  If you had
+asked me gently I would have told you how sorry I was, but I have such a
+dreadful temper.  I fly into a passion, and then I don't know what I
+say.  Do please forgive me, and stop crying!  There--there's my
+handkerchief; let me dry your eyes!"
+
+Lady Sarah trembled.
+
+"You are very good.  I don't blame you, poor child.  You are an honest
+lassie, and I've tried your temper many a time.  I was young and bright,
+too, once on a day, but that's all past now.  I am nothing but a
+fretful, selfish, old woman, a burden to everybody, without chick or
+child to care what becomes of me."
+
+"Don't say that.  I'll love you!  I'd like to love you if you will let
+me.  You see it has all been a mistake.  I thought you were cold and
+cross, and didn't care, but if you are only sad and lonely, why, then, I
+_do_ love you!" cried Mildred impetuously; "for I'm sure I should be
+fifty thousand times nastier myself if I were in your place."
+
+Lady Sarah smiled through her tears.
+
+"I don't want to be `nasty'!  I don't want to spoil your happiness, poor
+child!" she said pathetically; "but this crabbed spirit has grown and
+grown, until I seem powerless to overcome it.  And you must think me
+ungrateful, too.  I wanted to thank you for your help the other night.
+I don't forget it, child--I shall never forget it!  I was longing to see
+you this morning.  If you had been half an hour earlier, you would have
+had a different reception, but that child ran in and began telling his
+little stories.  I wish he had kept quiet.  I wish I had never
+listened."
+
+"I don't!  I am glad that you know, now that the scolding is over," said
+Mildred frankly.  "I am not sure that I could have screwed up courage to
+tell you myself, but I feel much more comfortable now that you do know.
+I've never done anything else like that; I truly haven't."
+
+Lady Sarah smiled, and laid her hand caressingly on the golden head.
+
+"I believe you, my dear.  I am quite sure you have not, if you say so.
+You are a bright, hopeful, young creature, Mildred.  My heart goes out
+towards you.  Will you help an old woman to get the better of her
+fretful temper?"
+
+Mildred lifted her face, the grey eyes large and solemn.
+
+"If you help me, too," she said.  "Let us help each other!"
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+A HAPPY ENDING.
+
+The Dean and Mrs Faucit duly presented Mildred with a gold watch to
+match those already possessed by their own daughters.  It had a monogram
+on the back, an inscription inside the cover, and was altogether the
+most delightful specimen of its kind that could be imagined.
+
+Mildred developed an absorbing curiosity to know how time was passing
+during the next few days, which compelled her to pull out the watch
+every two or three minutes, while the intervals were agreeably spent in
+playing with the pretty little chain to which it was attached.  She
+wrote enthusiastic letters to her mother and Miss Margaret, describing
+her new possession and giving a dramatic description of the events which
+had led to its presentation; but the answers which she received were
+distinctly disappointing, for Mrs Moore could only send a verbal
+message, while Mardie treated her news in aggravatingly lukewarm manner.
+
+Mildred realised with chagrin that her thrilling description had failed
+to arouse anything like the interest which she expected.  Even the
+congratulations which followed were wanting in fervour, as though the
+presentation of a watch and chain were an everyday occurrence.
+
+"_And now, dear, I have something interesting to tell you_," the letter
+went on, when the subject of Mildred's own adventures had been dismissed
+in a few cursory sentences; and as she read the words, the girl tossed
+her head with a gesture of impatience.
+
+"Interesting indeed!  What does she call _my_ news?--A robbery,--a
+capture,--a quarrel,--a reconciliation,--a watch and chain!  She has
+nothing half so interesting to tell me, I am sure."  Mildred changed her
+mind, however, before she finished reading Miss Margaret's letter.
+
+  And now, dear, I have something interesting to tell you.  You remember
+  the story about my friend, the planter in Ceylon, whose crop of
+  cinchona died down so disastrously?  I told it to you the night when
+  you were so distressed about not being able to go home for the
+  holidays.  You said at the time that this disappointment was different
+  to yours, because it had not affected my own personal happiness; but
+  you were wrong, Mildred dear, for if that crop had been a success,
+  instead of a failure, I should have been the planter's wife long ago,
+  and you would not have had "Mardie" at Milvern House!  Years have
+  passed since then, but now things look brighter, though there is no
+  prospect of a second fortune, and I am going to live in Ceylon,
+  Mildred, in the very bungalow of which we spoke together.
+
+  I am afraid you will not find me at school when you return after the
+  holidays, for we are going to be married very soon; but Mr Lytton
+  will be in England for six months to come, and that wonderful person,
+  his future wife, will, I feel sure, pay many visits to Milvern House,
+  to see the dear girls whose affection has been a comfort to her during
+  the days of her loneliness.  Are you very much surprised, Mildred?
+  You must write and tell me what you think of my great news, and tell
+  Bertha and Lois to write too.  By the way, Mr Lytton brought a friend
+  to call upon me the other day, a Mr Muir, who is a neighbour in
+  Ceylon.  He told me that he had met you at a picnic the other day, and
+  intrusted me with a message which I was to give the next time I wrote:
+  "Give Miss Mildred my love, and tell her that I am quite of her
+  opinion."  What did he mean, dear?  I am curious.
+
+Mildred gave a loud shriek of excitement when she came to that thrilling
+word "wife", the effect of which was to bring Bertha and Lois flying to
+peer over her shoulder.  Together the three girls read the letter,
+together they gasped, and groaned, and exclaimed, together they burst
+into a chorus of lamentation when the end was reached.
+
+"School without Mardie!"
+
+"Lessons without Mardie!"
+
+"Milvern House without Mardie!  Oh, oh, oh! how shall we bear it?"
+
+"I hate Mr Lytton!" cried Mildred vindictively, then repenting; "at
+least, I don't exactly mean that.  It is only natural that he should
+want Mardie if he can get her; but I call him selfish.  What are _we_ to
+do, I should like to know?"
+
+"Perhaps he would think we were selfish to want to keep her to
+ourselves," said Bertha pensively.  "I am glad that Mardie is going to
+be happy, but I can't imagine school without her.  Who will welcome the
+new girls, and comfort them when they are homesick?  Who will take us
+out on half-holidays, and read aloud in the evening?  Who will nurse us
+when we are ill?"
+
+"Who will have her room when she is gone?  I can't think how she can
+find it in her heart to leave that sweet little room!" cried Lois, in
+her turn.  "But she must be anxious to go, I suppose, or she would not
+have promised to marry him."
+
+"I wouldn't like to live in a country where you met snakes when you went
+out for afternoon strolls; but I think Indian people are nice," declared
+Mildred.  "That Mr Muir had such a nice, sunburnt face, and such kind,
+twinkling eyes!  If Mardie's husband is like that, I'll forgive him for
+taking her away.  But I'll work like a slave, so as to be able to leave
+school as soon as possible.  `Mrs Lytton!'  Gracious!  We shall have to
+give her a present.  I wish the wedding were not quite so soon, for I
+have only two and twopence in the world.  Perhaps we could join
+together."
+
+"I think it would be a good thing if the whole school joined, and gave
+her something really handsome--a dressing-bag, for instance."
+
+"Oh, not a dressing-bag.  She would use that on the voyage, and perhaps
+not again for two or three years.  We ought to choose something that she
+would need every day.  A clock would be nice," and Mildred jingled her
+watch-chain with an air of proud possession.
+
+"I think a ring would be better than either," said Lois; and the
+discussion went on with unabated energy for the next half-hour, when it
+was abandoned to allow the disputants to write letters of hearty, though
+somewhat lugubrious, congratulation, to the bride-elect.
+
+Mildred had no sooner finished her letter than she ran upstairs to spend
+half an hour with Lady Sarah in her bedroom.  The compact of friendship
+which had been made a few days earlier had been kept all the more
+faithfully on the girl's part because the old lady had been suffering
+from the effect of shock and excitement, and had been confined to bed
+for several days.  Mary the housemaid was deputed to act as maid in the
+place of the unhappy Cecile, but half a dozen times a day Mildred would
+go into the room to rearrange the pillows, and enliven the invalid with
+her bright, sunshiny presence.  Lady Sarah always welcomed her with a
+smile, and never allowed her to depart without the earnest "Come back
+soon!" which sounded sweetly in the girl's ear.  She was growing really
+fond of the old lady, and adopted little airs of authority in the
+sick-room which amused and fascinated the onlookers.
+
+On the present occasion she despatched Mary downstairs to tea, and
+seated herself on the end of the bed, with her hair falling in showers
+over her shoulders, and her hands clasped round her knees.  A fortnight
+ago Lady Sarah would have exclaimed at the inelegance of the position,
+but to-day her gaze rested upon the girlish figure as if the sight were
+pleasant in her eyes.  She herself looked thin and shaken, but the
+kindly expression transformed her face, and the soft, white hair was
+much more becoming than the elaborate wig which she was in the habit of
+wearing.  Mildred felt very strongly on this point, and did not hesitate
+to put her thoughts into words.
+
+"If you are going to be _my_ old lady I shall insist upon burning that
+ugly, brown wig!" she said this afternoon.  "I love old ladies with
+white hair, and yours is prettier than any imitation.  When you get up I
+am going to arrange it for you over a cushion in front, and with a
+pretty piece of lace falling over the back.  I don't think the brown
+hair suits you a bit, and it looks so frizzled up and artificial.  You
+don't mind my saying so--do you?" she concluded in an artless manner
+which made Lady Sarah smile in spite of herself.
+
+"No, my dear, no!  Whatever please you.  It is a long time since anyone
+took an interest in my appearance.  But it will be awkward.  People will
+make remarks--"
+
+"What will that matter, when they will only say that you look twice as
+nice?  Of course everyone knew quite well that it was a wig," said
+Mildred, with an unconscious cruelty at which Lady Sarah winced.  When
+the latter spoke again, however, it was to make a request which showed
+that she cherished no resentment.
+
+"I have been wondering, Mildred, if you would spend the remainder of
+your holidays with me in Scotland.  The Faucits leave for Switzerland
+next week, Miss Chilton will be busy preparing for the wedding of which
+you have just told me, and your mother's house will be closed for three
+weeks to come.  I have taken rooms in an hotel at Pitlochry, and I
+should like very much to have you with me.  It is a lovely spot, and
+there will be other young people in the house.  You would not be
+dependent upon me for society.  Do you think you could make up your mind
+to come?"
+
+"I should have to ask Mother first, but if she said yes, I could--quite
+easily," returned Mildred.  She clasped her fingers more tightly
+together and sat pondering over this latest extraordinary development of
+affairs--that Lady Sarah should invite her, of all people in the world,
+to pay her a visit, and that she should be willing to accept such an
+invitation.  If anyone had prophesied as much a fortnight before, how
+she would have scoffed and jeered, and what sheets of explanation it
+would take to convince the dear little mother that Lady Sarah was not
+the ogress which she had been represented, and that she might be trusted
+to treat her guest with kindness!
+
+"What are you thinking of, Mildred?" asked Lady Sarah, watching the
+changes in the girl's expression with curious eyes, and Mildred answered
+with her usual frankness.
+
+"I was thinking how strange it was that we should be such good friends,
+when we used to dislike each other so much!  You were cross to me,--I
+was rude to you, and we were always disagreeing!  I think I annoyed you
+the very first night I arrived.  You seemed vexed because I was late."
+
+"I never disliked you, child.  If I seemed to do so, it was because I
+have grown into the unfortunate habit of fault-finding.  On the contrary
+there is something about you which has always attracted me.  I don't
+know what it is--something in your voice, your laugh, your movements,
+which brings back memories of my youth.  What a long, long way off it
+seems!--like another life,--and of all that large family of boys and
+girls there is not one left alive but myself!  I am a lonely old woman,
+Mildred!"
+
+"But there is no need that you should be!  There are so many people in
+the world who need a friend, and you are rich--you can do kind things
+every day in the year!  I have often thought how nice it would be to be
+a dear old lady with curls, and a beautiful big house, and lots of
+money.  It is one of my castles in the air.  I would be a sort of fairy
+godmother to poor people; help struggling young geniuses, pretty girls
+who had to work for their living, and old women in dingy lodgings.  If I
+had no people of my own, I would go outside to find them, for I couldn't
+live alone, with no one to love me, and nothing to think of but myself!
+I couldn't do it!"
+
+Mildred looked at Lady Sarah with wistful eyes, as if demanding sympathy
+for the very thought.  She did not know that older people than herself
+had long been struggling for courage to impress these views of life upon
+her companion, and was guiltless of pointing a moral.  Lady Sarah
+listened, however, and pondered on her words without being in the least
+offended.  She was never offended at anything that Mildred said or did
+in these latter days; she seemed to have opened her heart to the girl
+with an unreserved affection which made Mrs Faucit very hopeful of the
+future.
+
+She said as much in the letter to Mrs Moore which accompanied Lady
+Sarah's invitation.
+
+  I hope very much that you will allow Mildred to accept Lady Sarah's
+  invitation, _she wrote_, for I believe the friendship which has grown
+  up between them will be of mutual benefit.  Lady Sarah has an
+  unfortunate manner, but I have always believed in her warmth of heart,
+  and she has fallen deeply in love with your dear, bright girl.  They
+  were not at all good friends at first, as you will doubtless have
+  heard, but circumstances have drawn them together, and I can see that
+  each is already beginning to exercise a beneficial influence over the
+  character of the other.  Mildred's sunshiny influence is smoothing the
+  wrinkles from the poor old lady's face, and the knowledge that one so
+  old and frail relies upon her for comfort, will, I am sure, overcome
+  the temptation to hastiness which she is ever bemoaning.  I don't
+  wonder at Lady Sarah's infatuation, for we are all in love with the
+  dear child.  She has been the life of our quiet house.  I hope we may
+  see much of her in the future.
+
+Mrs Moore received this letter, and the invitation which accompanied
+it, one hot afternoon as she sat in the fever room with her patient.
+Robbie was an invalid no longer, except in name--he was up and clothed
+and in his right mind; able to amuse himself by painting frescoes on the
+wall, and to scrub his obstinate little heels with pumice stone, after
+the morning and evening baths.  Mrs Moore read her letters through
+once, twice, and yet again; then she laid them down upon the table, took
+her handkerchief from her pocket, and very quietly and deliberately
+began to cry.
+
+She was a merry little mother as a rule, in spite of her anxieties, and
+had played the mountebank for Robbie's benefit with such success during
+the last few weeks, that he was aghast at the sudden change of mood.
+
+He gave a roar like a wounded bull, and rushing forward, burrowed his
+head on her knee.
+
+"Don't ky! don't ky!" he cried, "I'll never do it again! never do it
+again!" for conscience pricked concerning a dozen mischievous freaks,
+and he was convinced that it was his own wickedness which had brought
+about this outburst of distress.
+
+His mother seized him by the arm and stared into his face with eager
+eyes.  She was the prettiest little mother in the world, and Mildred did
+well to be proud of her.
+
+"Robbie!" she cried excitedly, "am I a good mother?  Have I been kind to
+you?  Do you love me with all your heart?"
+
+Robbie pranced about in an agony of emotion.
+
+"Boo--hoo--hoo!  Yes, I does!  Boo--hoo--"
+
+"And supposing a rich old lady came one day--very, very rich, Robbie--
+with houses, and gardens, and carriages, and horses, and ponies--
+beautiful little, long-tailed ponies, and she said, `Come and live with
+me, Robbie, and be my own little boy?'  What would you say?  Would you
+go away and leave poor Mother all alone?"
+
+"No--ow--ow!  Don't wants no old ladies!  Kick a nasty old pony over the
+wall!"
+
+The more his mother wept, the louder Robbie roared.  They clung together
+sobbing and crying until the sound penetrated to the lower regions, and
+the maid-of-all-work crept up the uncarpeted stair and listened, agape
+with horror.
+
+Then suddenly Mrs Moore shook Robbie off, bounded out of the room, and
+called to the servant to run down the road to summon Mrs Ross to come
+at once--at once, and to bring pencil and paper, so that she might write
+down the words of a letter to be dictated from an upper window.
+
+It was easy to see from whom Mildred had inherited her impetuosity.
+Poor Mrs Ross was bewildered by the torrent of words which were hurled
+at her head the moment she arrived.  She was obliged to write four
+separate letters before Mrs Moore was satisfied that she had said the
+right thing in the right way.
+
+The letter seemed fated to cause excitement from beginning to end.  When
+it arrived at The Deanery, Lady Sarah put up her eye-glasses to read it,
+only to drop them a moment later with a cry of astonishment.  She
+gasped, and panted, and gasped, and panted again, while the other
+occupants of the room stared aghast, not knowing what to make of such
+behaviour.
+
+"M-M-Mildred!" she cried, and when the girl advanced to her side, she
+clasped her in a passionate embrace.  "Mildred, Mildred, do you know who
+you are?  My own little niece--my grand-niece,--Mary's child!  I knew
+there was something familiar about you--I felt it!  I have said so over
+and over again, and now Mary writes,--poor Mary!  You always spoke of me
+as `Lady Sarah', and she never dreamt that it was I.  She has been
+living in the depths of the country and has never heard of my husband's
+honours.  She was unmarried when I saw her last--"
+
+"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!" cried Mildred shrilly, clasping her hands together in
+excitement, "It was you!  You were the rich aunt!  Oh, how dreadfully
+romantic!  Then you are my aunt, too.  `Aunt Sarah!'  Goodness me, who
+would ever have dreamt of such a thing!  And Mother says,--what does
+Mother say?"
+
+"She seems afraid, poor thing, that I shall try to take you from her, as
+I wished to separate her from her parents long ago; but be satisfied,
+Mildred, I have learned a lesson since those days.  I shall not try to
+take you from your mother!"
+
+"I am glad of that, because it would be such a waste of time," said
+Mildred promptly.  "Besides, you must come and see Mother yourself, and
+get to know the whole family.  You can never call yourself lonely again,
+Lady Sarah, for you will have a niece, and five grand-nieces, and a
+grand-nephew.  The grand-nephew is more important than all the rest put
+together.  Oh-h!" she gazed round the room with big, bewildered eyes, "I
+can't believe it.  My aunt!  Your niece!  If someone doesn't pinch me
+this moment, I shall believe I am asleep and dreaming.  Mrs Faucit,--
+Bertha,--Lois,--do you believe it?  Do I look at all altered?  Lady
+Sarah's niece!  I--I suppose it doesn't make any difference in my name,
+does it?  If I have come into a title, break it to me gently, please!  I
+can't bear much more excitement!"
+
+"Oh, Mildred!" cried the twins in chorus.  Mrs Faucit laughed merrily,
+and Lady Sarah looked round with an air of triumph.
+
+"Ah, my dear, you may take after your father in appearance, but you are
+your grandmother over again in disposition!  My sister Edyth--the
+brightest, merriest girl!  She was my friend and companion; no one knew
+what I suffered when she went away and left us.  Your mother is like
+her, Mildred--small and dark.  It was the resemblance which drew me to
+her, but she refused to leave home, and I went off to China and we lost
+sight of each other.  I was too proud to inquire what had become of her
+when I came home, but I have often thought of her.  Blood is thicker
+than water, and I have longed for some of my own kith and kin to be near
+me in my old age.  She is poor, you say, Mildred?  Well, well!"  Lady
+Sarah nodded her head in a mysterious fashion, which seemed to argue a
+hundred delightful possibilities.
+
+So it came to pass that Mildred went to Scotland with Lady Sarah, and
+when Robbie was out of quarantine, returned home in company with the old
+lady, who was almost as much excited at the meeting with Mrs Moore as
+the girl was herself.  Aunt and niece had many consultations together,
+the result of which was that Mrs Moore and her children bade farewell
+to their cottage home, and went to live in a pretty house situated just
+outside the gates of Lady Sarah's country seat.  Here they were near
+enough to be a comfort and cheer to the old lady during her last days,
+and not too near to become a burden, or to allow the children to disturb
+her rest.
+
+Lady Sarah took a great interest in her grand-nephew, and in every one
+of the five grand-nieces, and treated them all with equal generosity,
+but Mildred was her darling and chosen companion.
+
+The girl spent the greater part of every day up at the big house, and
+though many people shook their heads, and argued ill of such a
+friendship, it endured unbroken to the end.  By this it is not meant to
+imply that their lives flow on evenly, without discord or
+misunderstanding.  Quite the contrary.  Neither aunt nor niece changed
+their disposition in a moment; Lady Sarah's fretfulness often proved
+very trying to Mildred's temper, just as the old lady in her turn was
+overpowered by the girl's impetuous ways.  Old age and youth cannot live
+together without such trials as these, but they had one grand point in
+common which never failed to bring them together--they loved each other,
+and love is the sweetest of peacemakers.  Lady Sarah would remember her
+own youth, and check the hasty words on her lip.  Mildred, fretting and
+fuming, would suddenly bethink herself how sad it must be to be always
+tired and ailing, and struggle hard for patience.  A glance on one side,
+a word on the other, and the disagreement would be over, while each
+peacemaking taught a new lesson, and left more strength for the future.
+
+Mrs Moore and her children had much cause to bless the day when Lady
+Sarah became their friend, but when at last death took her away from
+their side, none of the good things which she inherited could console
+Mildred for the loss of the dear, cross, old lady whom she had grown to
+love so truly.
+
+The End.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's A Girl in Spring-Time, by Jessie Mansergh
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