Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fourteen.“It Relates to your Niece Annie.”It seemed to Annie that she had got quite close to John Saxon when he and she sat together on that boulder overhanging the valley below. But when they returned to the Rectory a barrier was once again erected between them.She had little or nothing to say to her cousin, and he had little or nothing to communicate to her. Mr Brooke was better. He was awake and inclined for company. Annie and Saxon both sat with him after supper. He asked Annie to sing for him. She had a sweet though commonplace voice.She sat down by the little, old piano, played hymn tunes, and sang two or three of the best-known hymns. By-and-by Saxon took her place. He had a lovely tenor voice, and the difference between his singing and Annie’s was so marked that Mrs Shelf crept into the room to listen, and the old clergyman sat gently moving his hand up and down to keep time to the perfect rhythm and the exquisite, rich tones of the singer.“Nearer, my God, to Thee,” sang John Saxon.Mr Brooke looked at Annie. Her head was bowed. Instinctively he put out his hand and laid it on her shoulder. “E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,” sang the sweet voice.“A cross that raiseth me,” murmured old Mr Brooke. His hand rested a little heavier on the slim young shoulder. Annie felt herself trembling. Her worldly thoughts could not desert her even at that sacred moment.She had escaped a terrible danger, for even she, bad as she was, would not jeopardise the life of the old man who loved her best in the world. All fear of that was over now, and she would win a delightful time in Paris into the bargain. She was quite sure that John could manage her uncle.The next morning the strange attack which had rendered Mr Brooke’s condition one of such anxiety had to all appearance? passed away. He was a little weak still, and his head a trifle dizzy; but he was able to potter about the garden leaning on John Saxon’s arm.Annie, who was anxious to go as soon as possible to Rashleigh, ran up to John for a minute.“I have to ride to Rashleigh to get some things for Mrs Shelf,” she said. “While I am away tell him—I know you will do it beautifully—tell him how necessary it is, and that I shall come back whenever he sends for me. Do it now, please; for you know that I must leave here this afternoon.”Accordingly, while Annie was trotting on horseback in to Rashleigh with that money which was to be exchanged for the necessary receipt from Dawson, Saxon broached the subject of Paris to the old man.“There is a little matter, sir,” he said, “which I should like to speak to you about.”“And what is that, John?”“It relates to your niece Annie.”“Ah, dear child!” said the old man; “and what about her?”“She seems to be in distress,” continued Saxon. “Oh, please don’t worry, sir; her great anxiety is to prevent your worrying.”“Dear, dear child! So thoughtful of her,” murmured the clergyman.“You were rather bad, you know, yesterday, and she and I took a walk together while you were having your sleep. It was then she confided to me that she has been invited to Paris.”“I know, John,” said old Mr Brooke, turning and looking fixedly at the young man; “and I am the last to prevent her going; but, naturally, I want to know something about the woman who has invited her—a certain Lady Lushington. I never heard her name before. Annie tells me that Lady Lushington’s niece is her greatest school friend; and I feel assured that my Annie would not have a school friend who was not in all respects worthy—that goes without saying; nevertheless, a young girl has to be guarded. Don’t you agree with me, John?”“Certainly I do, sir. Still, if you will permit me to say so, Annie seems very sensible.”“She is wonderfully so; my Annie’s little head is screwed the right way on her shoulders—not a doubt whatever on that point. But the thing is this. I can inquire of Mrs Lyttelton what she knows with regard to Lady Lushington. If matters are favourable the child shall go. Can anything be more reasonable?”“In one sense, sir, nothing can be more reasonable; but in another, your making this condition forces poor Annie practically to give up her invitation.”“Eh? How so? How so?”“Well, you see, it is this way. If she cannot join Lady Lushington on Tuesday evening—that is, to-morrow—she cannot join her at all, for this lady is leaving Paris on the following day. Annie can either go with her or not go with her. There is, therefore, you will perceive, sir, no time to communicate with Mrs Lyttelton.”“That is true,” said Mr Brooke. “But why didn’t Annie tell me so herself?”“She couldn’t bear to worry you. Poor child! she was put out very much, but she meant to give up her visit rather than worry you.” Saxon wondered, as he was uttering the last words, if he were straining at the truth. He continued now abruptly: “And that is not all. From what your niece tells me, she goes, or hopes to go, to Paris for a very different reason from mere selfish pleasure. There is a young friend of hers whom she hopes most seriously to benefit by this visit. She will not tell me how, but she assures me emphatically that it is so.”“Dear, dear!” said the old man. “Sweet of her! sweet of her! And you think—you really think I ought to waive my objection and trust my child?”“She earnestly hopes that you will do so, sir—that you will permit her at least to go for a day or two, and then recall her if it is essential.”“Oh, I wouldn’t do that; I wouldn’t for a moment be so selfish.”“But she herself would wish to come back to you if you were really indisposed.”“I would not be so selfish, John—not for a moment. Yes, you have opened my eyes; the dear child shall certainly go. It is a disappointment not to have her, but if we old folks cannot take a few little crosses when we are so near the summit of the hill, and all the crosses and all the difficulties are almost smoothed away, what are we worth, my dear young sir? Oh, I should be the last to stand in the way of my dear little girl.”“On the other hand,” said Saxon, “Annie would be extremely unworthy if she stayed away from you did you really need her. To go to Paris, to transact her necessary business, and then quickly to return is a very different matter. And now, sir, don’t let us talk any more about it. Let me bring you back to your study, and let me fetch you a glass of good port wine.” Saxon met Annie as she was returning with Dawson’s receipt in her pocket.“Good news!” he said, smiling at her. She felt herself turning pale.“Oh, does he consent?”“He does, and only as he could—right willingly and with all his heart. He is a man in ten thousand! I told him that you would not stay if he were really ill I shall trust you, therefore, to come back as soon as ever I send you word that it is necessary. Will you promise me that?”“Of course, of course,” she replied.“Well, go to him now. Don’t stay long. Remember that he is weak and will feel the parting. He has said nothing about money; and as you have sufficient you had better not worry him for the present.”Annie’s conference with her uncle was of short duration. He kissed her two or three times, but there were no tears in his eyes.“You should have confided in me, Annie,” he said once. “I am not an unreasonable man. I thought this was a pleasure visit; I did not know that my dear little girl had a noble and unselfish project at the back of everything. My Annie will herself know if Lady Lushington is the sort of woman I should like her to be with. If you find her as I should like her to be found, stay with her, Annie, until I recall you. You see how I trust you, my darling.”“You do, you do,” answered the girl; “and I love you,” she added, “as I never loved you before.”

It seemed to Annie that she had got quite close to John Saxon when he and she sat together on that boulder overhanging the valley below. But when they returned to the Rectory a barrier was once again erected between them.

She had little or nothing to say to her cousin, and he had little or nothing to communicate to her. Mr Brooke was better. He was awake and inclined for company. Annie and Saxon both sat with him after supper. He asked Annie to sing for him. She had a sweet though commonplace voice.

She sat down by the little, old piano, played hymn tunes, and sang two or three of the best-known hymns. By-and-by Saxon took her place. He had a lovely tenor voice, and the difference between his singing and Annie’s was so marked that Mrs Shelf crept into the room to listen, and the old clergyman sat gently moving his hand up and down to keep time to the perfect rhythm and the exquisite, rich tones of the singer.

“Nearer, my God, to Thee,” sang John Saxon.

Mr Brooke looked at Annie. Her head was bowed. Instinctively he put out his hand and laid it on her shoulder. “E’en though it be a cross that raiseth me,” sang the sweet voice.

“A cross that raiseth me,” murmured old Mr Brooke. His hand rested a little heavier on the slim young shoulder. Annie felt herself trembling. Her worldly thoughts could not desert her even at that sacred moment.

She had escaped a terrible danger, for even she, bad as she was, would not jeopardise the life of the old man who loved her best in the world. All fear of that was over now, and she would win a delightful time in Paris into the bargain. She was quite sure that John could manage her uncle.

The next morning the strange attack which had rendered Mr Brooke’s condition one of such anxiety had to all appearance? passed away. He was a little weak still, and his head a trifle dizzy; but he was able to potter about the garden leaning on John Saxon’s arm.

Annie, who was anxious to go as soon as possible to Rashleigh, ran up to John for a minute.

“I have to ride to Rashleigh to get some things for Mrs Shelf,” she said. “While I am away tell him—I know you will do it beautifully—tell him how necessary it is, and that I shall come back whenever he sends for me. Do it now, please; for you know that I must leave here this afternoon.”

Accordingly, while Annie was trotting on horseback in to Rashleigh with that money which was to be exchanged for the necessary receipt from Dawson, Saxon broached the subject of Paris to the old man.

“There is a little matter, sir,” he said, “which I should like to speak to you about.”

“And what is that, John?”

“It relates to your niece Annie.”

“Ah, dear child!” said the old man; “and what about her?”

“She seems to be in distress,” continued Saxon. “Oh, please don’t worry, sir; her great anxiety is to prevent your worrying.”

“Dear, dear child! So thoughtful of her,” murmured the clergyman.

“You were rather bad, you know, yesterday, and she and I took a walk together while you were having your sleep. It was then she confided to me that she has been invited to Paris.”

“I know, John,” said old Mr Brooke, turning and looking fixedly at the young man; “and I am the last to prevent her going; but, naturally, I want to know something about the woman who has invited her—a certain Lady Lushington. I never heard her name before. Annie tells me that Lady Lushington’s niece is her greatest school friend; and I feel assured that my Annie would not have a school friend who was not in all respects worthy—that goes without saying; nevertheless, a young girl has to be guarded. Don’t you agree with me, John?”

“Certainly I do, sir. Still, if you will permit me to say so, Annie seems very sensible.”

“She is wonderfully so; my Annie’s little head is screwed the right way on her shoulders—not a doubt whatever on that point. But the thing is this. I can inquire of Mrs Lyttelton what she knows with regard to Lady Lushington. If matters are favourable the child shall go. Can anything be more reasonable?”

“In one sense, sir, nothing can be more reasonable; but in another, your making this condition forces poor Annie practically to give up her invitation.”

“Eh? How so? How so?”

“Well, you see, it is this way. If she cannot join Lady Lushington on Tuesday evening—that is, to-morrow—she cannot join her at all, for this lady is leaving Paris on the following day. Annie can either go with her or not go with her. There is, therefore, you will perceive, sir, no time to communicate with Mrs Lyttelton.”

“That is true,” said Mr Brooke. “But why didn’t Annie tell me so herself?”

“She couldn’t bear to worry you. Poor child! she was put out very much, but she meant to give up her visit rather than worry you.” Saxon wondered, as he was uttering the last words, if he were straining at the truth. He continued now abruptly: “And that is not all. From what your niece tells me, she goes, or hopes to go, to Paris for a very different reason from mere selfish pleasure. There is a young friend of hers whom she hopes most seriously to benefit by this visit. She will not tell me how, but she assures me emphatically that it is so.”

“Dear, dear!” said the old man. “Sweet of her! sweet of her! And you think—you really think I ought to waive my objection and trust my child?”

“She earnestly hopes that you will do so, sir—that you will permit her at least to go for a day or two, and then recall her if it is essential.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that; I wouldn’t for a moment be so selfish.”

“But she herself would wish to come back to you if you were really indisposed.”

“I would not be so selfish, John—not for a moment. Yes, you have opened my eyes; the dear child shall certainly go. It is a disappointment not to have her, but if we old folks cannot take a few little crosses when we are so near the summit of the hill, and all the crosses and all the difficulties are almost smoothed away, what are we worth, my dear young sir? Oh, I should be the last to stand in the way of my dear little girl.”

“On the other hand,” said Saxon, “Annie would be extremely unworthy if she stayed away from you did you really need her. To go to Paris, to transact her necessary business, and then quickly to return is a very different matter. And now, sir, don’t let us talk any more about it. Let me bring you back to your study, and let me fetch you a glass of good port wine.” Saxon met Annie as she was returning with Dawson’s receipt in her pocket.

“Good news!” he said, smiling at her. She felt herself turning pale.

“Oh, does he consent?”

“He does, and only as he could—right willingly and with all his heart. He is a man in ten thousand! I told him that you would not stay if he were really ill I shall trust you, therefore, to come back as soon as ever I send you word that it is necessary. Will you promise me that?”

“Of course, of course,” she replied.

“Well, go to him now. Don’t stay long. Remember that he is weak and will feel the parting. He has said nothing about money; and as you have sufficient you had better not worry him for the present.”

Annie’s conference with her uncle was of short duration. He kissed her two or three times, but there were no tears in his eyes.

“You should have confided in me, Annie,” he said once. “I am not an unreasonable man. I thought this was a pleasure visit; I did not know that my dear little girl had a noble and unselfish project at the back of everything. My Annie will herself know if Lady Lushington is the sort of woman I should like her to be with. If you find her as I should like her to be found, stay with her, Annie, until I recall you. You see how I trust you, my darling.”

“You do, you do,” answered the girl; “and I love you,” she added, “as I never loved you before.”

Chapter Fifteen.A Travelling Companion.Nothing interfered with Annie’s arrangements. She left Rashleigh by the train by which she had always intended to go up to town. She took a room at the Grosvenor Hotel for the night, spending what little time she had in doing some necessary shopping.Her intention was to write to Uncle Maurice for further funds on her arrival at the Grand Hotel. She would know there Lady Lushington’s movements, and could tell her uncle where to forward letters. There was one thing, however, which brought rather a sting with it. There was a memory which she did not care to recall; that was the look on John Saxon’s face when he bade her good-bye.John Saxon had been her very good friend. He had helped her with funds so that her wicked action with regard to Dawson’s cheque would never now be discovered. He had also smoothed the way for her with her uncle. She had gone away from the Rectory with Uncle Maurice’s blessing sounding in her ears; and although Mrs Shelf was decidedly chuff, and muttered things under her breath, and declared resolutely that she had no patience with gadabouts, and that there was a time for preserving, and not for preserving, and a time for nursing, and not for nursing; and a time for pleasuring, and not for pleasuring, these things made little impression on Annie; but John Saxon, who was silent and said nothing at all, made her feel uncomfortable. Just at the end he made a solitary remark:“Give us your address as soon as possible; for, if necessary, I will telegraph for you. And now good-bye. I trust you will enjoy yourself and—and—save your friend.”Then the train had whizzed out of sight. She no longer saw the upright figure and the manly face, and she no longer felt the disapproval in the voice and the want of confidence in the eyes. But the memory of these things remained with her, and she wanted to shut them away.The next morning she was in good time at Victoria Station. But what was her amazement to find standing on the same platform, and evidently intending to go to Dover by the same train, no less a person than her old schoolfellow, Priscilla Weir!“You look surprised, Annie,” said Priscilla. “Nevertheless, no less a thing has happened than that I am going to Paris too. Lady Lushington has invited me, and as she is good enough to pay all my expenses, you and I are travelling together. I had no time to let you know, or I would have done so. I hope you are pleased. But I don’t suppose,” added Priscilla, “that it makes much difference whether you are pleased or not.”“I don’t suppose it does,” answered Annie, who was secretly very much annoyed. “Well, of course,” she continued, “we had best travel in the same carriage.”The girls found their seats, and after a time, when the bustle of departure was over, Annie turned to Priscilla.“How has this come about?” she asked.“It was Mabel’s doing;” said Priscilla—“Mabel’s, and partly, I think, Mrs Lyttelton’s. Mrs Lyttelton found it rather inconvenient to keep me at the school during the holidays, for a good many of the rooms are to be redecorated. I couldn’t go to Uncle Josiah; and I cannot tell you how or why, but I had a long letter from Mabel, most jolly and affectionate, asking me to join her aunt and herself, and telling me that you would be sure to be of the party. There was enclosed a letter from Lady Lushington, sending me a cheque; and although I scarcely care for this sort of invitation, yet I have been forced to accept it. I am on my way now to share your fun. I can quite well believe that this is not agreeable to you, but it really cannot be helped.”“Oh, agreeable or disagreeable, we must make the best of it,” said Annie. “Of coarse,” she added, “I am glad to have a companion. There’s no reason, Priscilla, why we should not be the best of friends. It did seem rather funny, at first, to think of you, of all people, joining this expedition. But if you are not sorry to be with me, I don’t see why I should not be pleased to be with you.”“Were I to choose,” said Priscilla, “I would much prefer not to be either with you or Mabel. But that is neither here nor there. I have done wrong; I am very unhappy. I suppose I shall go on doing wrong now to the end of the chapter. But I don’t want to bother you about it. Let us look out of the window and enjoy the scenery. I suppose that is the correct thing to do.”Annie still felt a strong sense of irritation. How hard she had worked to get this pleasure for herself, and now, was Priscilla, of all people, to damp her joys? Whatever her faults, however, Annie Brooke was outwardly good-natured and essentially good-tempered. There are a great many people of this sort in the world. They are lacking in principle and sadly wanting in sincerity, but nevertheless they are pleasant to be with. They show the sunny side of their character on most occasions, and in small matters are fairly unselfish and inclined to make the best of things.Annie now, after a brief time of reflection, made up her mind to make the best of Priscilla. Priscilla was not to her taste. She was too conscientious and, in Annie’s opinion, far too narrow-minded. Nevertheless, they were outwardly very good friends, and must continue to act their parts. So on board the steamer she made herself pleasant, and useful also, to poor Priscilla, who felt the motion of the boat considerably, and had, in short, a bad time. Annie, who was never seasick in her life, won golden opinions while on board for her goodness and consideration to Priscilla; and when, finally, they were ensconced in two comfortable seatsen routefor Paris, her spirits rose high. She put aside all disagreeable memories and gave herself up to enjoyment.“We shall have fun,” she said. “We must make the very best of things; we must forget all school disagreeables.”“I only hope one thing,” said Priscilla, dropping her voice to a low tone, “and that is that the subject of the prize essay won’t be mentioned in my presence. You know how I acted with regard to it. Well, I have done the wicked deed, and want if possible, to forget it.”“But why should it be spoken about?”“Surely,” remarked Priscilla, “Lady Lushington is very likely to talk on the subject. You know it was on account of Mabel winning the prize that she has been taken away from school.”“Oh yes,” said Annie in an off-hand way; “but I could quite imagine, from what I have heard of Lady Lushington, that she will forget all about the matter in an incredibly short space of time.”“I hope so,” said Priscilla; “it will be all the better for me if she does.”“There is one thing you must remember, Priscie,” said Annie; “if by any chance she alludes to it, you must keep up the deception.”Priscilla looked at Annie with very wide-open, grey eyes.“I shall leave the room,” she said; “I am not good at being deceitful.” Then she added quickly, “There are times when I feel that I can only recover my self-respect by making a clean breast of everything.”“Oh!” said Annie, in some alarm, “you could not possibly do that; think what awful trouble you would get poor Mabel and me into.”“I know,” said Priscilla; “and that is the one thing which keeps me back.”“If I might venture to make the remark,” said Annie, “it is the one thing which in honouroughtto keep you back. There is honour even amongst thieves, you know,” she added a little nervously.“And that is what I am,” said poor Priscilla. “I have practically stolen my year’s schooling; I have, like Esau, sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Oh! what shall I do?”“Nothing,” said Annie; “and please don’t talk any more in that particularly intense way, for people will begin to stare at us.”Priscilla sank back in her seat. Her head was aching. Annie, on the contrary, sat very upright, looking fresh, bright, and happy. After a time, however, something occurred which made her feel less comfortable. Priscilla bent towards her and said:“By the way—I was almost forgetting, and she begged of me so hard not to do so—but will you return her book to Susan Martin?” Annie’s face became crimson, then pale.“Susan Martin?” she said. “Do you know her?”“Of course I know her, Annie. What a queer colour you have turned! She has been making several things for me during the last few days. She is very much excited, poor girl, about a manuscript book of poems which you borrowed from her. She said you wanted them to show to a judge of poetry in order to help her to get them published. I had not an idea that the poor girl was a poet.”“Oh, she is,” said Annie, who by this time had recovered her self-possession, and whom the very imminence of the danger rendered cool and self-possessed. “She writes quite wonderfully. I did borrow her book to show to Uncle Maurice; he is such a good judge.”“Oh, wasthatall?” said Priscilla. “I thought from Susan’s manner that you knew some publisher. She thinks a great deal about her poems.”“Yes, poor girl!” said Annie; “I must write to her.”“Have you shown the poems to your uncle, Annie?”“Not yet, Priscilla. Uncle Maurice has not been well; I could not worry him with those sort of matters.”“Not well?” said Priscilla. “And you have left him?”“Yes, my dear, good Priscilla,” said Annie; “I have been wicked enough to do so. He is too ill to be bothered with Susan Martin’s productions, but not too ill to afford me a pleasant little holiday. Now do let’s change the subject.”“With pleasure,” said Priscilla. “I wish to change it, if you don’t mind, by shutting my eyes, for I have a very bad headache.”While Priscilla slept, or tried to sleep, Annie sat back amongst her cushions lost in thought.“Really,” she said to herself, “if all the things that I have done lately were discovered I should have but a poor time. I forgot all about Susan Martin and her manuscript book. It came in very handily at the time, but now it is no end of a bore. I ought to have cautioned her not to speak of it to any one. It is a great pity that Priscilla knows about it, for if by any chance she asks Susan to show her the book, the two poems attributed to Mabel will immediately be discovered. Certainly Priscilla is a disagreeable character, and I cannot imagine why I have bothered myself so much about her.”The railway journey came to an end, and a short time afterwards the girls found themselves greeted by Lady Lushington and Mabel at the Grand Hotel.Lady Lushington was a tall, slender woman of from thirty-eight to forty years of age. Her face was rather worn and pale. She had a beautiful figure, and was evidently a good deal made up. Her hair was of a fashionable shade of colour. Annie concluded at once that it was dyed. Priscilla, who had never heard of dyed hair, thought it very beautiful.“My dears,” said the good lady, advancing to meet both girls, “I am delighted to see you.—Mabel, here are your two young friends.—Now, will you go at once with Parker to your rooms and get ready for dinner? We all dine in the restaurant—demi-toilette, you know. Afterwards we will sit in the courtyard and listen to the band.”“I will come with you both,” said Mabel, who, dressed with extreme care and looking remarkably fresh and handsome, now took a hand of each of her friends.—“This is your room, Priscilla,” she said, and she ushered Priscilla into a small room which looked on to the courtyard.—“Parker,” she continued, turning to the maid, “will you see that Miss Weir has everything that she wants.—Now, Annie, I will attend to you. You don’t mind, do you?—for it is only for one night—but you have to share my room; the hotel is so full, Aunt Henrietta could not get a room for you alone. But I will promise to make myself as little obtrusive as possible.”“Oh May!” said Annie, “I am just delighted to sleep in a room with you. I have so much to say—dear old May!” she added suddenly, turning and kissing her friend. “Iamglad to see you again!”“And I to see you, Annie,” replied Mabel. “I am having a glorious time, and want you to share it with me. Aunt Hennie has just been splendid, and has given me a completely new wardrobe—the most exquisite dresses, all bought and made at the best shops here, quite regardless of expense, too. I cannot tell you how much they have cost. How do you like this pink silk? Isn’t it sweet?”“Yes, lovely,” said Annie, thinking with a sigh of her own poor clothes. But then she added, “Rich dresses suit you, Mabel, for you are made on a big and a bountiful scale. It is lucky for me that I can do with lees fine garments.”“Oh, but I assure you, Annie, you are not going to be left out in the cold. You must have no scruples whatever in wearing the clothes that Aunt Hennie has got for you. She wants to take some young girls about with her, and she would not have you a frump for all the world; so there are a few pretty, fresh little toilettes put away in that box by Parker which I think will exactly fit you. There is a dress on that bed—oh, only white lace and muslin—which you are to wear this evening at the restaurant dinner; and there is a smart little travelling-costume for you to appear in to-morrow. You can leave them all behind you at the end of your jaunt, if you are too proud to take them; but, anyhow, while with us you have to wear themnolens volens.”“Oh dear!” said Annie, almost skipping with rapture, “I am sure I am not a bit too proud.”“We have got things for Priscie too,” said Mabel, “and I do hope she won’t turn up crusty; she is such a queer girl.”“Why ever did you invite her, Mabel?” asked Annie.“Why did I invite her?” said Mabel. “It was not my doing, you may be sure. Not that I dislike the poor old thing; far from that. She is quite a dear. But, of course, what I wanted was to have you to myself; but no—Aunt Hennie wouldn’t hear of it; she said that nothing would induce her to take two girls about with her. Her remark was that we should always be together, and that she would bede trop. Now she doesn’t mean to bede trop, so one of us is always to be with her, and the other two can enjoy themselves. She said at once, when I broached the subject of your joining us, that you might come with pleasure, and she would be only too delighted if another of our schoolfellows came as well. My dear, I argued and argued, but she was firm. So then I had to think of poor Priscilla, for really there was no one else to come; none of the others would dream of giving up their own friends and their own fun; and there was Priscilla landed at the school. So I told Aunt Hennie what she was like—grave and sedate, with grey eyes and a nice sort of face. I assured her that Priscie was a girl worth knowing, and Aunt Henrietta took a fancy to my description, told me to write off to her and to Mrs Lyttelton; and she wrote herself also; and, of course, Mrs Lyttelton jumped at it. So here we are, saddled with Priscie, and we must make the best of it. Dear Annie, do take off your hat and jacket, and get into your evening-dress; we shall be going down to dinner in a few minutes. I will help you with your hair if you need it, for I expect Parker is having a war of words with Priscilla. There’s such a sweet dress waiting for Priscie to wear—dove-coloured silk, made very simply. She will look like a Quakeress in it; it will suit her to perfection.”Just at that moment a commotion was heard on the landing outside; a hurried knock came at the room door, and Priscilla, flushed, untidy, and wearing the same dress as she had travelled in, stood on the threshold. Behind Priscilla appeared the equally disturbed face and figure of Parker.“Really, Miss Lushington,” began Parker, “I have done all I could—”“Your conduct is not justifiable,” interrupted Priscilla. “I am very sorry indeed, Mabel; you mean kindly, of course, but I cannot wear clothes that don’t belong to me. I would rather not have dinner, if you will excuse me. My head aches, and I should much prefer to go to bed.”“Oh dear,” said Mabel, “what a fuss you make about nothing, Priscie! Why, the dress is all part of the play. Let us think of you as acting in a play while you are with Aunt Henrietta and me; if you take a part in it, you must dress to fit the part. Oh, put on your lovely grey silk—you will look perfectly sweet in it—and come down to dinner with Annie and me. See Annie; she is in her white muslin already, and looks a perfect darling.”“I feel a perfect darling,” said Annie. “I love this dress. I adore fine clothes. I am not one little bit ashamed to wear it.”“Well,” said Priscilla, “Annie can please herself; but if I have to wear other people’s clothes, or clothes that don’t belong to me and that I have no right whatever to accept, I shall have to give up this trip and go back to England to-morrow.”“Oh dear!” said Mabel, “you are queer, Priscilla. I do wish—I dowishI could persuade you.”“It is all useless, miss,” said Parker in an offended tone; “I have spoken to Miss Weir until I am tired, and she won’t see reason.—You see, miss,” continued Parker, “the dresses are bought, and if you don’t wear them they will be wasted. I understand proper pride, miss, but this does not seem to me reasonable, miss. You will forgive my saying so?”“Yes, Parker, of course I forgive you,” said Priscilla; “but all the same,” she added, “I shall go on this expedition in my own clothes or I don’t go at all.”“You will be a fright,” said Annie.“I would rather be a fright and myself; I should not feel myself in other people’s clothes.”“You are very silly,” said Mabel. “Can I do nothing?”“I will talk to you afterwards, Priscilla,” said Annie.—“Let her alone now, May. She had a bad time crossing, and I dare say would rather go to bed.—You will look at all these things in a different light in the morning, Pris.”“We shall have to be off fairly early in the morning,” said Mabel, “so you may as well go to bed if you are dead-tired, Priscie.—Parker, will you get some tea and anything else that Miss Weir may require, and have it brought to her room?”“Thank you,” said Priscilla. She stood, tall, awkward, and ungracious, before the other two. They felt that she was so, and that there was something in her expression which made them both, deep down in their hearts, feel small. Annie could not help saying to herself, “I wouldn’t give up the chance of wearing pretty clothes;” and Mabel was thinking, “If only Priscilla were well dressed she would look handsomer than either of us.”A minute later Priscilla turned to leave the room. “I am very sorry, girls,” she said.—“Perhaps, Mabel,” she added, “as you are leaving in the morning, I ought to see Lady Lushington now.”“Oh, dear me!” said Mabel; “you will put Aunt Hennie out enormously if you worry her now.”“Still, I think I ought. I am terribly sorry, but she ought to understand immediately my feelings in this matter.”“Let her go; let her speak to your aunt,” whispered Annie.“Very well,” said Mabel. “You will find Aunt Henrietta,” she continued, “waiting for us all in the drawing-room.”Priscilla immediately left the room. She walked across the broad landing to the private sitting-room which Lady Lushington occupied in the hotel. The latter was standing by a window, when the door opened, and a tall, rather untidy girl dressed in dark-blue serge of no graceful cut, with her hair brushed back from her forehead and her face much agitated, appeared before that lady.“I have something to say to you, Lady Lushington,” said Priscilla.“You are Priscilla Weir?” said that lady. “There is a great difference between you and the little girl with the blue eyes. What is her name?”“Annie Brooke.”“You are very great friends, are you not?”“We are schoolfellows,” was Priscilla’s reply. Lady Lushington looked all over the girl. The expression of her face signified disapproval; but suddenly her eyes met the large, grey ones of Priscilla and a curious feeling visited her. She was a kindly woman, although full of prejudices.“Sit down, child,” she said. “If you have something really to say I will listen; although, to tell you the truth, I am exceedingly hungry, and am waiting for you all to dine with me in the restaurant.”“I am not hungry,” said Priscilla, “and, if you will excuse me, I will not go to the restaurant to-night; your kind maid will bring me something to eat in my bedroom.”“You are tired from your journey, poor girl! Well, then, go to bed and get rested. We start for Interlaken in the morning.”“That is why I must trouble you to-night,” said Priscilla.“Why, my dear? Do sit down.”But Priscilla stood; only now she put out a slim hand and steadied herself by holding on to the back of a chair.“It was a great delight to come to you,” said Priscilla, “and a very great surprise; and when you arranged to pay all my travelling expenses and to take me about with you from place to place, I consented without my pride being especially hurt; for I felt sure that in many small ways I could be of use to you. I thought over all the different things I could do, and, somehow, it seemed to me that I might make up to you for the money you are spending on me—”“But when we ask a guest,” interrupted Lady Lushington, “to go with us on a pleasure-trip, we don’t form a sort of creditor and debtor account in our minds; we are just glad to give pleasure, and want no return for it beyond the fact that wearegiving pleasure.”“I understand that,” said Priscilla, her eyes brightening; “and the pleasure you would give me would be, oh! beyond any power of mine to describe, for there is something in me which would appreciate; and if I were to see great, grand, beautiful scenery, it would dwell always in my mind, and in the very darkest days that came afterwards I should remember it and be happy because of it.”“Sit down, child. How queerly you speak! You have very good eyes, let me tell you, child—fine, expressive, interesting eyes.”Priscilla did not seem to hear, and Lady Lushington was more impressed by this fact than she had been yet by anything she had discovered about her.“There are the clothes,” said Priscilla, bursting into the heart of her subject, and interlacing her long fingers tightly together. “I—you will forgive me—but I am too proud to wear them. I cannot, Lady Lushington. If you won’t have me shabby as I am—and I am sure I am very shabby—I cannot come with you. You will be so exceedingly generous as to let me have my fare back to Lyttelton School, and I shall always thank you for your best of best intentions. But I cannot wear clothes that I have not earned, and that I have no right to.”“But Annie Brooke?” interrupted Lady Lushington.“I am not here to answer for Annie Brooke,” replied Priscilla with great dignity. “If you want me, you must take me as I am.”“I declare,” said Lady Lushington, “you are a queer creature. And you really mean it?”“Yes—absolutely. It is just because I am too proud. I have no right to my pride, perhaps; still, I cannot let it go.”There was a world of pathos in Priscilla’s eyes now as they fixed themselves on the worldly face of the lady.“You are quaint; you are delightful,” said Lady Lushington. “Come as you are, then. You will perhaps not be too proud to allow Parker to arrange your hair so as to show off that fine head of yours to the best advantage. But even in rags, child, come with us; for any one fresh like you, and unselfconscious like you, and indifferent to outward appearance like you, carries a charm of her own, and I do believe it is beyond the charm of dress.”When Lady Lushington had uttered these words Priscilla went up to her and took her hand, and suddenly, before the great lady could prevent her, she raised that hand to her lips and kissed it. Then she hurried from the room.

Nothing interfered with Annie’s arrangements. She left Rashleigh by the train by which she had always intended to go up to town. She took a room at the Grosvenor Hotel for the night, spending what little time she had in doing some necessary shopping.

Her intention was to write to Uncle Maurice for further funds on her arrival at the Grand Hotel. She would know there Lady Lushington’s movements, and could tell her uncle where to forward letters. There was one thing, however, which brought rather a sting with it. There was a memory which she did not care to recall; that was the look on John Saxon’s face when he bade her good-bye.

John Saxon had been her very good friend. He had helped her with funds so that her wicked action with regard to Dawson’s cheque would never now be discovered. He had also smoothed the way for her with her uncle. She had gone away from the Rectory with Uncle Maurice’s blessing sounding in her ears; and although Mrs Shelf was decidedly chuff, and muttered things under her breath, and declared resolutely that she had no patience with gadabouts, and that there was a time for preserving, and not for preserving, and a time for nursing, and not for nursing; and a time for pleasuring, and not for pleasuring, these things made little impression on Annie; but John Saxon, who was silent and said nothing at all, made her feel uncomfortable. Just at the end he made a solitary remark:

“Give us your address as soon as possible; for, if necessary, I will telegraph for you. And now good-bye. I trust you will enjoy yourself and—and—save your friend.”

Then the train had whizzed out of sight. She no longer saw the upright figure and the manly face, and she no longer felt the disapproval in the voice and the want of confidence in the eyes. But the memory of these things remained with her, and she wanted to shut them away.

The next morning she was in good time at Victoria Station. But what was her amazement to find standing on the same platform, and evidently intending to go to Dover by the same train, no less a person than her old schoolfellow, Priscilla Weir!

“You look surprised, Annie,” said Priscilla. “Nevertheless, no less a thing has happened than that I am going to Paris too. Lady Lushington has invited me, and as she is good enough to pay all my expenses, you and I are travelling together. I had no time to let you know, or I would have done so. I hope you are pleased. But I don’t suppose,” added Priscilla, “that it makes much difference whether you are pleased or not.”

“I don’t suppose it does,” answered Annie, who was secretly very much annoyed. “Well, of course,” she continued, “we had best travel in the same carriage.”

The girls found their seats, and after a time, when the bustle of departure was over, Annie turned to Priscilla.

“How has this come about?” she asked.

“It was Mabel’s doing;” said Priscilla—“Mabel’s, and partly, I think, Mrs Lyttelton’s. Mrs Lyttelton found it rather inconvenient to keep me at the school during the holidays, for a good many of the rooms are to be redecorated. I couldn’t go to Uncle Josiah; and I cannot tell you how or why, but I had a long letter from Mabel, most jolly and affectionate, asking me to join her aunt and herself, and telling me that you would be sure to be of the party. There was enclosed a letter from Lady Lushington, sending me a cheque; and although I scarcely care for this sort of invitation, yet I have been forced to accept it. I am on my way now to share your fun. I can quite well believe that this is not agreeable to you, but it really cannot be helped.”

“Oh, agreeable or disagreeable, we must make the best of it,” said Annie. “Of coarse,” she added, “I am glad to have a companion. There’s no reason, Priscilla, why we should not be the best of friends. It did seem rather funny, at first, to think of you, of all people, joining this expedition. But if you are not sorry to be with me, I don’t see why I should not be pleased to be with you.”

“Were I to choose,” said Priscilla, “I would much prefer not to be either with you or Mabel. But that is neither here nor there. I have done wrong; I am very unhappy. I suppose I shall go on doing wrong now to the end of the chapter. But I don’t want to bother you about it. Let us look out of the window and enjoy the scenery. I suppose that is the correct thing to do.”

Annie still felt a strong sense of irritation. How hard she had worked to get this pleasure for herself, and now, was Priscilla, of all people, to damp her joys? Whatever her faults, however, Annie Brooke was outwardly good-natured and essentially good-tempered. There are a great many people of this sort in the world. They are lacking in principle and sadly wanting in sincerity, but nevertheless they are pleasant to be with. They show the sunny side of their character on most occasions, and in small matters are fairly unselfish and inclined to make the best of things.

Annie now, after a brief time of reflection, made up her mind to make the best of Priscilla. Priscilla was not to her taste. She was too conscientious and, in Annie’s opinion, far too narrow-minded. Nevertheless, they were outwardly very good friends, and must continue to act their parts. So on board the steamer she made herself pleasant, and useful also, to poor Priscilla, who felt the motion of the boat considerably, and had, in short, a bad time. Annie, who was never seasick in her life, won golden opinions while on board for her goodness and consideration to Priscilla; and when, finally, they were ensconced in two comfortable seatsen routefor Paris, her spirits rose high. She put aside all disagreeable memories and gave herself up to enjoyment.

“We shall have fun,” she said. “We must make the very best of things; we must forget all school disagreeables.”

“I only hope one thing,” said Priscilla, dropping her voice to a low tone, “and that is that the subject of the prize essay won’t be mentioned in my presence. You know how I acted with regard to it. Well, I have done the wicked deed, and want if possible, to forget it.”

“But why should it be spoken about?”

“Surely,” remarked Priscilla, “Lady Lushington is very likely to talk on the subject. You know it was on account of Mabel winning the prize that she has been taken away from school.”

“Oh yes,” said Annie in an off-hand way; “but I could quite imagine, from what I have heard of Lady Lushington, that she will forget all about the matter in an incredibly short space of time.”

“I hope so,” said Priscilla; “it will be all the better for me if she does.”

“There is one thing you must remember, Priscie,” said Annie; “if by any chance she alludes to it, you must keep up the deception.”

Priscilla looked at Annie with very wide-open, grey eyes.

“I shall leave the room,” she said; “I am not good at being deceitful.” Then she added quickly, “There are times when I feel that I can only recover my self-respect by making a clean breast of everything.”

“Oh!” said Annie, in some alarm, “you could not possibly do that; think what awful trouble you would get poor Mabel and me into.”

“I know,” said Priscilla; “and that is the one thing which keeps me back.”

“If I might venture to make the remark,” said Annie, “it is the one thing which in honouroughtto keep you back. There is honour even amongst thieves, you know,” she added a little nervously.

“And that is what I am,” said poor Priscilla. “I have practically stolen my year’s schooling; I have, like Esau, sold my birthright for a mess of pottage. Oh! what shall I do?”

“Nothing,” said Annie; “and please don’t talk any more in that particularly intense way, for people will begin to stare at us.”

Priscilla sank back in her seat. Her head was aching. Annie, on the contrary, sat very upright, looking fresh, bright, and happy. After a time, however, something occurred which made her feel less comfortable. Priscilla bent towards her and said:

“By the way—I was almost forgetting, and she begged of me so hard not to do so—but will you return her book to Susan Martin?” Annie’s face became crimson, then pale.

“Susan Martin?” she said. “Do you know her?”

“Of course I know her, Annie. What a queer colour you have turned! She has been making several things for me during the last few days. She is very much excited, poor girl, about a manuscript book of poems which you borrowed from her. She said you wanted them to show to a judge of poetry in order to help her to get them published. I had not an idea that the poor girl was a poet.”

“Oh, she is,” said Annie, who by this time had recovered her self-possession, and whom the very imminence of the danger rendered cool and self-possessed. “She writes quite wonderfully. I did borrow her book to show to Uncle Maurice; he is such a good judge.”

“Oh, wasthatall?” said Priscilla. “I thought from Susan’s manner that you knew some publisher. She thinks a great deal about her poems.”

“Yes, poor girl!” said Annie; “I must write to her.”

“Have you shown the poems to your uncle, Annie?”

“Not yet, Priscilla. Uncle Maurice has not been well; I could not worry him with those sort of matters.”

“Not well?” said Priscilla. “And you have left him?”

“Yes, my dear, good Priscilla,” said Annie; “I have been wicked enough to do so. He is too ill to be bothered with Susan Martin’s productions, but not too ill to afford me a pleasant little holiday. Now do let’s change the subject.”

“With pleasure,” said Priscilla. “I wish to change it, if you don’t mind, by shutting my eyes, for I have a very bad headache.”

While Priscilla slept, or tried to sleep, Annie sat back amongst her cushions lost in thought.

“Really,” she said to herself, “if all the things that I have done lately were discovered I should have but a poor time. I forgot all about Susan Martin and her manuscript book. It came in very handily at the time, but now it is no end of a bore. I ought to have cautioned her not to speak of it to any one. It is a great pity that Priscilla knows about it, for if by any chance she asks Susan to show her the book, the two poems attributed to Mabel will immediately be discovered. Certainly Priscilla is a disagreeable character, and I cannot imagine why I have bothered myself so much about her.”

The railway journey came to an end, and a short time afterwards the girls found themselves greeted by Lady Lushington and Mabel at the Grand Hotel.

Lady Lushington was a tall, slender woman of from thirty-eight to forty years of age. Her face was rather worn and pale. She had a beautiful figure, and was evidently a good deal made up. Her hair was of a fashionable shade of colour. Annie concluded at once that it was dyed. Priscilla, who had never heard of dyed hair, thought it very beautiful.

“My dears,” said the good lady, advancing to meet both girls, “I am delighted to see you.—Mabel, here are your two young friends.—Now, will you go at once with Parker to your rooms and get ready for dinner? We all dine in the restaurant—demi-toilette, you know. Afterwards we will sit in the courtyard and listen to the band.”

“I will come with you both,” said Mabel, who, dressed with extreme care and looking remarkably fresh and handsome, now took a hand of each of her friends.—“This is your room, Priscilla,” she said, and she ushered Priscilla into a small room which looked on to the courtyard.—“Parker,” she continued, turning to the maid, “will you see that Miss Weir has everything that she wants.—Now, Annie, I will attend to you. You don’t mind, do you?—for it is only for one night—but you have to share my room; the hotel is so full, Aunt Henrietta could not get a room for you alone. But I will promise to make myself as little obtrusive as possible.”

“Oh May!” said Annie, “I am just delighted to sleep in a room with you. I have so much to say—dear old May!” she added suddenly, turning and kissing her friend. “Iamglad to see you again!”

“And I to see you, Annie,” replied Mabel. “I am having a glorious time, and want you to share it with me. Aunt Hennie has just been splendid, and has given me a completely new wardrobe—the most exquisite dresses, all bought and made at the best shops here, quite regardless of expense, too. I cannot tell you how much they have cost. How do you like this pink silk? Isn’t it sweet?”

“Yes, lovely,” said Annie, thinking with a sigh of her own poor clothes. But then she added, “Rich dresses suit you, Mabel, for you are made on a big and a bountiful scale. It is lucky for me that I can do with lees fine garments.”

“Oh, but I assure you, Annie, you are not going to be left out in the cold. You must have no scruples whatever in wearing the clothes that Aunt Hennie has got for you. She wants to take some young girls about with her, and she would not have you a frump for all the world; so there are a few pretty, fresh little toilettes put away in that box by Parker which I think will exactly fit you. There is a dress on that bed—oh, only white lace and muslin—which you are to wear this evening at the restaurant dinner; and there is a smart little travelling-costume for you to appear in to-morrow. You can leave them all behind you at the end of your jaunt, if you are too proud to take them; but, anyhow, while with us you have to wear themnolens volens.”

“Oh dear!” said Annie, almost skipping with rapture, “I am sure I am not a bit too proud.”

“We have got things for Priscie too,” said Mabel, “and I do hope she won’t turn up crusty; she is such a queer girl.”

“Why ever did you invite her, Mabel?” asked Annie.

“Why did I invite her?” said Mabel. “It was not my doing, you may be sure. Not that I dislike the poor old thing; far from that. She is quite a dear. But, of course, what I wanted was to have you to myself; but no—Aunt Hennie wouldn’t hear of it; she said that nothing would induce her to take two girls about with her. Her remark was that we should always be together, and that she would bede trop. Now she doesn’t mean to bede trop, so one of us is always to be with her, and the other two can enjoy themselves. She said at once, when I broached the subject of your joining us, that you might come with pleasure, and she would be only too delighted if another of our schoolfellows came as well. My dear, I argued and argued, but she was firm. So then I had to think of poor Priscilla, for really there was no one else to come; none of the others would dream of giving up their own friends and their own fun; and there was Priscilla landed at the school. So I told Aunt Hennie what she was like—grave and sedate, with grey eyes and a nice sort of face. I assured her that Priscie was a girl worth knowing, and Aunt Henrietta took a fancy to my description, told me to write off to her and to Mrs Lyttelton; and she wrote herself also; and, of course, Mrs Lyttelton jumped at it. So here we are, saddled with Priscie, and we must make the best of it. Dear Annie, do take off your hat and jacket, and get into your evening-dress; we shall be going down to dinner in a few minutes. I will help you with your hair if you need it, for I expect Parker is having a war of words with Priscilla. There’s such a sweet dress waiting for Priscie to wear—dove-coloured silk, made very simply. She will look like a Quakeress in it; it will suit her to perfection.”

Just at that moment a commotion was heard on the landing outside; a hurried knock came at the room door, and Priscilla, flushed, untidy, and wearing the same dress as she had travelled in, stood on the threshold. Behind Priscilla appeared the equally disturbed face and figure of Parker.

“Really, Miss Lushington,” began Parker, “I have done all I could—”

“Your conduct is not justifiable,” interrupted Priscilla. “I am very sorry indeed, Mabel; you mean kindly, of course, but I cannot wear clothes that don’t belong to me. I would rather not have dinner, if you will excuse me. My head aches, and I should much prefer to go to bed.”

“Oh dear,” said Mabel, “what a fuss you make about nothing, Priscie! Why, the dress is all part of the play. Let us think of you as acting in a play while you are with Aunt Henrietta and me; if you take a part in it, you must dress to fit the part. Oh, put on your lovely grey silk—you will look perfectly sweet in it—and come down to dinner with Annie and me. See Annie; she is in her white muslin already, and looks a perfect darling.”

“I feel a perfect darling,” said Annie. “I love this dress. I adore fine clothes. I am not one little bit ashamed to wear it.”

“Well,” said Priscilla, “Annie can please herself; but if I have to wear other people’s clothes, or clothes that don’t belong to me and that I have no right whatever to accept, I shall have to give up this trip and go back to England to-morrow.”

“Oh dear!” said Mabel, “you are queer, Priscilla. I do wish—I dowishI could persuade you.”

“It is all useless, miss,” said Parker in an offended tone; “I have spoken to Miss Weir until I am tired, and she won’t see reason.—You see, miss,” continued Parker, “the dresses are bought, and if you don’t wear them they will be wasted. I understand proper pride, miss, but this does not seem to me reasonable, miss. You will forgive my saying so?”

“Yes, Parker, of course I forgive you,” said Priscilla; “but all the same,” she added, “I shall go on this expedition in my own clothes or I don’t go at all.”

“You will be a fright,” said Annie.

“I would rather be a fright and myself; I should not feel myself in other people’s clothes.”

“You are very silly,” said Mabel. “Can I do nothing?”

“I will talk to you afterwards, Priscilla,” said Annie.—“Let her alone now, May. She had a bad time crossing, and I dare say would rather go to bed.—You will look at all these things in a different light in the morning, Pris.”

“We shall have to be off fairly early in the morning,” said Mabel, “so you may as well go to bed if you are dead-tired, Priscie.—Parker, will you get some tea and anything else that Miss Weir may require, and have it brought to her room?”

“Thank you,” said Priscilla. She stood, tall, awkward, and ungracious, before the other two. They felt that she was so, and that there was something in her expression which made them both, deep down in their hearts, feel small. Annie could not help saying to herself, “I wouldn’t give up the chance of wearing pretty clothes;” and Mabel was thinking, “If only Priscilla were well dressed she would look handsomer than either of us.”

A minute later Priscilla turned to leave the room. “I am very sorry, girls,” she said.—“Perhaps, Mabel,” she added, “as you are leaving in the morning, I ought to see Lady Lushington now.”

“Oh, dear me!” said Mabel; “you will put Aunt Hennie out enormously if you worry her now.”

“Still, I think I ought. I am terribly sorry, but she ought to understand immediately my feelings in this matter.”

“Let her go; let her speak to your aunt,” whispered Annie.

“Very well,” said Mabel. “You will find Aunt Henrietta,” she continued, “waiting for us all in the drawing-room.”

Priscilla immediately left the room. She walked across the broad landing to the private sitting-room which Lady Lushington occupied in the hotel. The latter was standing by a window, when the door opened, and a tall, rather untidy girl dressed in dark-blue serge of no graceful cut, with her hair brushed back from her forehead and her face much agitated, appeared before that lady.

“I have something to say to you, Lady Lushington,” said Priscilla.

“You are Priscilla Weir?” said that lady. “There is a great difference between you and the little girl with the blue eyes. What is her name?”

“Annie Brooke.”

“You are very great friends, are you not?”

“We are schoolfellows,” was Priscilla’s reply. Lady Lushington looked all over the girl. The expression of her face signified disapproval; but suddenly her eyes met the large, grey ones of Priscilla and a curious feeling visited her. She was a kindly woman, although full of prejudices.

“Sit down, child,” she said. “If you have something really to say I will listen; although, to tell you the truth, I am exceedingly hungry, and am waiting for you all to dine with me in the restaurant.”

“I am not hungry,” said Priscilla, “and, if you will excuse me, I will not go to the restaurant to-night; your kind maid will bring me something to eat in my bedroom.”

“You are tired from your journey, poor girl! Well, then, go to bed and get rested. We start for Interlaken in the morning.”

“That is why I must trouble you to-night,” said Priscilla.

“Why, my dear? Do sit down.”

But Priscilla stood; only now she put out a slim hand and steadied herself by holding on to the back of a chair.

“It was a great delight to come to you,” said Priscilla, “and a very great surprise; and when you arranged to pay all my travelling expenses and to take me about with you from place to place, I consented without my pride being especially hurt; for I felt sure that in many small ways I could be of use to you. I thought over all the different things I could do, and, somehow, it seemed to me that I might make up to you for the money you are spending on me—”

“But when we ask a guest,” interrupted Lady Lushington, “to go with us on a pleasure-trip, we don’t form a sort of creditor and debtor account in our minds; we are just glad to give pleasure, and want no return for it beyond the fact that wearegiving pleasure.”

“I understand that,” said Priscilla, her eyes brightening; “and the pleasure you would give me would be, oh! beyond any power of mine to describe, for there is something in me which would appreciate; and if I were to see great, grand, beautiful scenery, it would dwell always in my mind, and in the very darkest days that came afterwards I should remember it and be happy because of it.”

“Sit down, child. How queerly you speak! You have very good eyes, let me tell you, child—fine, expressive, interesting eyes.”

Priscilla did not seem to hear, and Lady Lushington was more impressed by this fact than she had been yet by anything she had discovered about her.

“There are the clothes,” said Priscilla, bursting into the heart of her subject, and interlacing her long fingers tightly together. “I—you will forgive me—but I am too proud to wear them. I cannot, Lady Lushington. If you won’t have me shabby as I am—and I am sure I am very shabby—I cannot come with you. You will be so exceedingly generous as to let me have my fare back to Lyttelton School, and I shall always thank you for your best of best intentions. But I cannot wear clothes that I have not earned, and that I have no right to.”

“But Annie Brooke?” interrupted Lady Lushington.

“I am not here to answer for Annie Brooke,” replied Priscilla with great dignity. “If you want me, you must take me as I am.”

“I declare,” said Lady Lushington, “you are a queer creature. And you really mean it?”

“Yes—absolutely. It is just because I am too proud. I have no right to my pride, perhaps; still, I cannot let it go.”

There was a world of pathos in Priscilla’s eyes now as they fixed themselves on the worldly face of the lady.

“You are quaint; you are delightful,” said Lady Lushington. “Come as you are, then. You will perhaps not be too proud to allow Parker to arrange your hair so as to show off that fine head of yours to the best advantage. But even in rags, child, come with us; for any one fresh like you, and unselfconscious like you, and indifferent to outward appearance like you, carries a charm of her own, and I do believe it is beyond the charm of dress.”

When Lady Lushington had uttered these words Priscilla went up to her and took her hand, and suddenly, before the great lady could prevent her, she raised that hand to her lips and kissed it. Then she hurried from the room.

Chapter Sixteen.A Delicious Dinner.After a time Annie Brooke and Mabel Lushington joined Lady Lushington in their smart dresses. Mabel looked most imposing in her pretty pink silk, and no one could look fresher and more charming than Annie in the white lace and muslin which fitted her trim little figure so nicely.Lady Lushington was standing very much in the same position in which she had been when Priscilla left her. She turned now as the two girls entered. There was a frown between her brows, and she scarcely glanced at either of them.“Come, come,” she said crossly, “how much longer must I be kept waiting? We will go down in the lift, Mabel; you lead the way.”Mabel immediately went first, Lady Lushington followed, and Annie brought up the rear. They entered a large lift, and presently found themselves on the ground-floor of the great hotel. In a very short time they were in the restaurant, which was quite the most brilliant and dazzling place Annie Brooke had ever seen. It seemed to be almost filled with gay ladies all in full evening-dress, and gentlemen in immaculate white shirt-fronts, white ties, and dinner-jackets. There were waiters rushing about here, there, and everywhere; and the tables, covered with their snowy napery, were further adorned with dazzlingly bright glass and silver; and, to add magic to the general effect, a little electric lamp with a silk shade over it stood in the centre of each table. There were flowers, also, in abundance. In short, the whole place seemed to Annie to be a sort of fairyland.A few people glanced up from their own tables when Lady Lushington, accompanied by the two girls, crossed the huge room to the table set aside for her party. She sat down, and Mabel and Annie found places at each side of her. A menu was immediately presented to her by a most gentlemanly man whom Annie thought perfectly fascinating in appearance, but who only turned out to be the head-waiter. Lady Lushington ordered certain dishes and two or three kinds of wine, and the meal began.Annie was both hungry and agitated; Mabel was somewhat indifferent. Lady Lushington ate steadily and with considerable appetite, but all the time wearing that slight frown of disapproval on her forehead. Annie glanced at her, and made up her mind that Lady Lushington was a very grand person indeed; that she (Annie), in spite of all her temerity, was going to be a little bit afraid of her; and that, of course, the reason for the great lady’s present discontent was the fact of Priscilla’s outrageous conduct.The three ladies hardly spoke at all, Mabel having quite sufficient tact to respect her aunt’s present mood. But as the dinner came to an end, concluding with the most delicious ice Annie had ever tasted in all her life, she could not help bending forward and saying in a low tone to Mabel:“What a great pity it is that our Priscie is such a fool!”Low as her tone was, it reached lady Lushington’s ears, who immediately turned and said in a snappish voice:“Whom do you mean by our Priscie, Miss Brooke?”“Why, Priscilla Weir, of course,” answered Annie, colouring as she spoke, and looking particularly sweet and innocent.“And why did you call her a fool?” was Lady Lushington’s next remark.“Oh,” said Annie—“oh”—Mabel longed to kick Annie’s foot, but could not manage to reach it. Annie plunged desperately into hot water. “Oh,” she added, “Priscilla—oh, Priscilla is so ridiculous; she has lost this delicious dinner and—and—rejected your kindness in giving her such dainty garments. I do pity her so much, and am so sorry that your great kindness should be thrown away.”“Then, pray,” said Lady Lushington, “keep your pity for me entirely to yourself, for I can assure you, Miss Brooke, that I do not need it. As to Miss Weir, she may or may not be a fool—I do not know her well enough to be able to give an opinion on that point—but she is at least a thorough lady.”Annie gazed, with her coral lips slightly open.“A thorough lady,” continued Lady Lushington, glancing with cruel eyes at the white muslin and lace frock which adorned Annie’s little person.“Then you are not angry with her?” said Annie. “I thought, after your kindness— But of course she is going in the morning, isn’t she?”“Miss Weir accompanies us to Interlaken,” said Lady Lushington, rising. “That is settled; and she wears her own dress, as an honest girl should. She may look peculiar; doubtless she will; but she is unaffected and has a noble way about her. Now let us change the subject—Girls, would you like to come out into the court for a few minutes to listen to the band, or are you, Miss Brooke, too tired, and would you prefer to go to bed?”“I think I will go to bed, please,” said Annie in a small, meek, crushed sort of voice.“Very well,” said Lady Lushington; “you are quite wise.—Mabel, take your friend to the lift and give her over to Parker’s care.—Goodnight, Miss Brooke. Remember we start very early in the morning, but Parker will wake you and bring you your coffee.”When, ten minutes later, Mabel joined her aunt Henrietta in the court of the famous hotel, Lady Lushington turned to her.“May I ask,” she remarked, “what earthly reason induced you to ask a commonplace person like Miss Brooke to join our expedition?”“Oh, I thought you would like her,” said Mabel. “She—she is a great friend of mine.” Mabel spoke in considerable alarm, for if indeed Aunt Henrietta turned against Annie, she would find herself in a most serious position. Lady Lushington was silent for a minute or two; then she said:“To be frank with you, Mabel, I don’t at the present moment like her at all. Whether I change my mind or not remains to be proved. Priscilla Weir is a fine creature, and worth twenty of that blue-eyed doll; but I suppose, as they have both come, we must put up with Miss Brooke for a short time. I may as well tell you frankly, however, Mabel, that I shall send her back to England, if she does not please me very much better than she has done on this first evening, at the first possible opportunity.”

After a time Annie Brooke and Mabel Lushington joined Lady Lushington in their smart dresses. Mabel looked most imposing in her pretty pink silk, and no one could look fresher and more charming than Annie in the white lace and muslin which fitted her trim little figure so nicely.

Lady Lushington was standing very much in the same position in which she had been when Priscilla left her. She turned now as the two girls entered. There was a frown between her brows, and she scarcely glanced at either of them.

“Come, come,” she said crossly, “how much longer must I be kept waiting? We will go down in the lift, Mabel; you lead the way.”

Mabel immediately went first, Lady Lushington followed, and Annie brought up the rear. They entered a large lift, and presently found themselves on the ground-floor of the great hotel. In a very short time they were in the restaurant, which was quite the most brilliant and dazzling place Annie Brooke had ever seen. It seemed to be almost filled with gay ladies all in full evening-dress, and gentlemen in immaculate white shirt-fronts, white ties, and dinner-jackets. There were waiters rushing about here, there, and everywhere; and the tables, covered with their snowy napery, were further adorned with dazzlingly bright glass and silver; and, to add magic to the general effect, a little electric lamp with a silk shade over it stood in the centre of each table. There were flowers, also, in abundance. In short, the whole place seemed to Annie to be a sort of fairyland.

A few people glanced up from their own tables when Lady Lushington, accompanied by the two girls, crossed the huge room to the table set aside for her party. She sat down, and Mabel and Annie found places at each side of her. A menu was immediately presented to her by a most gentlemanly man whom Annie thought perfectly fascinating in appearance, but who only turned out to be the head-waiter. Lady Lushington ordered certain dishes and two or three kinds of wine, and the meal began.

Annie was both hungry and agitated; Mabel was somewhat indifferent. Lady Lushington ate steadily and with considerable appetite, but all the time wearing that slight frown of disapproval on her forehead. Annie glanced at her, and made up her mind that Lady Lushington was a very grand person indeed; that she (Annie), in spite of all her temerity, was going to be a little bit afraid of her; and that, of course, the reason for the great lady’s present discontent was the fact of Priscilla’s outrageous conduct.

The three ladies hardly spoke at all, Mabel having quite sufficient tact to respect her aunt’s present mood. But as the dinner came to an end, concluding with the most delicious ice Annie had ever tasted in all her life, she could not help bending forward and saying in a low tone to Mabel:

“What a great pity it is that our Priscie is such a fool!”

Low as her tone was, it reached lady Lushington’s ears, who immediately turned and said in a snappish voice:

“Whom do you mean by our Priscie, Miss Brooke?”

“Why, Priscilla Weir, of course,” answered Annie, colouring as she spoke, and looking particularly sweet and innocent.

“And why did you call her a fool?” was Lady Lushington’s next remark.

“Oh,” said Annie—“oh”—Mabel longed to kick Annie’s foot, but could not manage to reach it. Annie plunged desperately into hot water. “Oh,” she added, “Priscilla—oh, Priscilla is so ridiculous; she has lost this delicious dinner and—and—rejected your kindness in giving her such dainty garments. I do pity her so much, and am so sorry that your great kindness should be thrown away.”

“Then, pray,” said Lady Lushington, “keep your pity for me entirely to yourself, for I can assure you, Miss Brooke, that I do not need it. As to Miss Weir, she may or may not be a fool—I do not know her well enough to be able to give an opinion on that point—but she is at least a thorough lady.”

Annie gazed, with her coral lips slightly open.

“A thorough lady,” continued Lady Lushington, glancing with cruel eyes at the white muslin and lace frock which adorned Annie’s little person.

“Then you are not angry with her?” said Annie. “I thought, after your kindness— But of course she is going in the morning, isn’t she?”

“Miss Weir accompanies us to Interlaken,” said Lady Lushington, rising. “That is settled; and she wears her own dress, as an honest girl should. She may look peculiar; doubtless she will; but she is unaffected and has a noble way about her. Now let us change the subject—Girls, would you like to come out into the court for a few minutes to listen to the band, or are you, Miss Brooke, too tired, and would you prefer to go to bed?”

“I think I will go to bed, please,” said Annie in a small, meek, crushed sort of voice.

“Very well,” said Lady Lushington; “you are quite wise.—Mabel, take your friend to the lift and give her over to Parker’s care.—Goodnight, Miss Brooke. Remember we start very early in the morning, but Parker will wake you and bring you your coffee.”

When, ten minutes later, Mabel joined her aunt Henrietta in the court of the famous hotel, Lady Lushington turned to her.

“May I ask,” she remarked, “what earthly reason induced you to ask a commonplace person like Miss Brooke to join our expedition?”

“Oh, I thought you would like her,” said Mabel. “She—she is a great friend of mine.” Mabel spoke in considerable alarm, for if indeed Aunt Henrietta turned against Annie, she would find herself in a most serious position. Lady Lushington was silent for a minute or two; then she said:

“To be frank with you, Mabel, I don’t at the present moment like her at all. Whether I change my mind or not remains to be proved. Priscilla Weir is a fine creature, and worth twenty of that blue-eyed doll; but I suppose, as they have both come, we must put up with Miss Brooke for a short time. I may as well tell you frankly, however, Mabel, that I shall send her back to England, if she does not please me very much better than she has done on this first evening, at the first possible opportunity.”

Chapter Seventeen.Ingratiating Secretary.But Lady Lushington, when she took a prejudice against Annie Brooke, reckoned without her host. Annie was far too clever to allow this state of things to continue long.The next day the three girls and Lady Lushington starteden routefor Interlaken. There they put up at one of the most fashionable hotels, and there Annie began to find her feet and gradually to undermine Lady Lushington’s prejudice against her. Even if Mabel had not whispered the disconcerting fact to her that she had not made a good, impression on her aunt, Annie was far too sharp not to discover it for herself when Mabel said to her on that first night in the Grand Hotel in Paris, “I must tell you the truth, Annie; you are a failure so far; you have not pleased Aunt Henrietta, and Priscie has. I don’t know what I shall do if you leave me, but I know Aunt Hennie will send you back pretty sharp to England if you don’t alter your tactics, and how I am ever to meet all that lies before me if this happens is more than I can fathom.”Annie had assured her friend that she need not be the least afraid, and, knowing the truth, or part of the truth, took her measures accordingly.They had not been settled at the Belle Vue Hotel, Interlaken, more than two days before Lady Lushington, who was an exceedingly selfish, worldly woman, although quite kind-hearted, began to alter her mind with regard to both Annie Brooke and Priscilla Weir.Priscilla, notwithstanding her fine and impressive eyes, her honest manner, and her earnest wish to make herself pleasant, looked undoubtedlygauchein the old-fashioned garments which were mostly made for her by poor Susan Martin. Lady Lushington found that though people remarked on Priscilla when she walked with the others in the fashionable part of the town or sat with them when they listened to the band or took her place in thesalle-à-mangerby their sides, yet those glances were by no means ones of admiration. The girl looked oppressed by a certain care, and dowdy beyond all words. Lady Lushington liked her, and yet she did not like her. She felt, however, bound to keep to her compact—to make the best of poor Priscilla. Accordingly, she told her friends that Priscilla Weir was a genius, and a little quaint with regard to her clothes, and that, in consequence, she had to put up with her peculiar dress.“But she is such an honest good creature,” said Lady Lushington in conclusion, “that I am quite glad to have her as a companion for Mabel.”Now the people to whom Lady Lushington gave this confidence were by no means interested in Priscilla’s predilection for quaint clothes. They pronounced her an oddity, and left her to the fate of all oddities—namely, to herself. Annie, on the contrary, who made the best of everything, and who looked quite ravishingly pretty in the smart frocks which Parker, by Lady Lushington’s desire, supplied her with, came in for that measure of praise which was denied to poor Priscie. Annie looked very modest, too, and had such charming, unaffected, ingenuous blue eyes, the blue eyes almost of a baby.Lady Lushington found her first prejudices melting out of sight as she watched Annie’s grace and noticed her apparent unselfishness.It was Annie’s cue to be unselfish during these days, and Lady Lushington began to form really golden opinions with regard to her character. She had been very nice on the journey, taking the most uncomfortable seat and thinking of every one’s comfort except her own. She had been delightful when they reached Interlaken, putting up with a very small and hot bedroom almost in the roof of the hotel. And now she began to make herself useful to Lady Lushington.This great lady had a vast amount of voluminous correspondence. She liked writing to her friends in her own illegible hand, but she hated writing business letters. Now Annie wrote an exceedingly neat and legible hand, and when she offered herself as Lady Lushington’s amanuensis, making the request in the prettiest voice imaginable, and looking so eagerly desirous to help the good woman, Mabel’s aunt felt her last prejudice against Annie Brooke melting out of sight.“Really, my dear,” she said, “you are good-natured. It would be a comfort to dictate my letters to you, but I am stupid about business letters. You do not mind if I dictate them very slowly?”“Oh no,” said Annie, “by no means; and I should so love to write them for you. You do such a great deal for poor little me that if there is any small way in which I can help you I shall be more than glad. Dear Lady Lushington, you don’t know how I feel your kindness.”“You are very good to say so, Miss Brooke. I have invited you here because you are Mabel’s friend.”“Sweet Mabel!” murmured Annie; “her very greatest friend. But now, may I help you?”“Well, bring those letters over here—that pile on the table. We may as well get through them.”Annie immediately found note-paper, blotting-paper, pens and ink, also a supply of foreign stamps and post-cards. She laid the letters in a pile on Lady Lushington’s lap.“Now,” she said, “if you will read them aloud to me and tell me what to say, I will write as slowly as ever you like. You can lean back in your comfortable chair; we will get through them as quickly as possible.”This conversation took place on the first day when Annie wrote letters to Lady Lushington’s dictation. Soon the thing became a habit, and Lady Lushington secured the services of Miss Brooke for a couple of hours daily. She quite enjoyed it. It was so much less trouble, sitting lazily in her chair and getting that smart, pretty little thing to do the toilsome work for her. She felt that Annie was assuredly pretty, and much more interesting than poor Priscilla.At last, on a day when the ladies had been at Interlaken for over a week, and were meaning to move on to Zermatt, Lady Lushington opened a letter, the contents of which caused her face to flush and her eyes to blaze with annoyance.“Really,” she said, “this is too bad; this is simply abominable!”“What is the matter?” asked Annie.She had guessed, however, what the matter was, and her heart beat as she made the remark, for that morning she had seen, lying on the breakfast-table amongst a pile of letters directed to Lady Lushington, one in the well-known writing of Mrs Priestley; and if Annie had any doubt on that point, the dressmaker’s address was printed on the flap of the envelope. Her innocent eyes, however, never looked more innocent as she glanced up now from the blank sheet of paper on which she was about to write.“Of course you know nothing about it, child,” said Lady Lushington, “but it is beyond belief; Mabel’s extravagance exceeds all bounds; I will not permit it for a single moment.”“Mabel’s extravagance?” said Annie, looking surprised. “But surely dear Mabel is not extravagant. I have never, never noticed it; I assure you I haven’t.”“Then what do you say to this?” said Lady Lushington. “That odious woman Priestley sends me a bill for one term’s clothing; total amount seventy pounds!”“Seventy pounds,” said Annie, “for Mabel’s dress?” She pretended to look shocked. “It is impossible,” she said slowly. “There must be a mistake.”“Of course there is a mistake. That abominable woman thinks that I am so rich that I don’t mind paying any amount. But she will learn that I am not to be imposed upon.”“What do you think you will say to her?” asked Annie.“I am sure I don’t know. I had best speak to Mabel herself.”“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Annie. “May gets so confused; dear May has no head for business; she won’t have the slightest idea what dress she did get. I know there was that lovely, expensive white satin for the school dance, and that beautiful dress ofcrêpe-de-Chinewith pearly trimmings which she wore on the day of the break-up—the day when she received her great honour, her prize for literature; and there was that pale-blue evening-dress of hers, and the rose-coloured silk.”“But I don’t remember those dresses at all. Where are they now?”“I dare say she has left them at school,” said Annie.“Left them at school?”“She would probably not think them fine enough for you.”“What absurdity! And even if she did get such uncalled-for, such unsuitable dresses, the sum total from a country dressmaker would not amount to seventy pounds.”“Well, I tell you what I would do if I were you,” said Annie. “If you will let me, I will write in your name for the items. Mrs Priestley has only sent you ‘To account rendered,’ has she not?”“That is a good idea,” said Lady Lushington. “I must speak to Mabel about her frocks when she appears. As a matter of fact, I do not mind what I spend on her now that she has come out, or partly come out, for of course she won’t be really introduced into society until she is presented next year. But seventy pounds for one schoolgirl’s wardrobe for a single term is too much.”“Then I may write?” said Annie, her hand trembling a little.“Certainly. Tell the woman to send all items at once here. Really, this has worried me.”Lady Lushington did not notice that, notwithstanding all Annie’s apparent coolness, there were additional spots of colour on her cheeks, and that her hand shook a little as she penned the necessary words. Suppose the majestic Mrs Priestley recognised her handwriting! There was no help for it now, however, and any delay in grappling with the evil hour was welcome.The letter was written and laid with several others on the table. Lady Lushington remarked after a minute’s pause:“I may as well confide in you, Miss Brooke, that nothing ever astonished me more than Mabel’s success in gaining that literature prize; for you know, my dear, between you and me, she is not at all clever.”“Oh, how you mistake her!” said Annie, with enthusiasm. “Dear Mabel does not care to talk about her deepest feelings or about those magnificent thoughts which visit her mind.”“She has no thoughts, my dear, except the silliest,” said Mabel’s aunt, with a laugh.“Oh, how you wrong her! Why, she is a poetess.”“A what?” said Lady Lushington.“She writes poems.”“Nonsense! I don’t believe you.”“I can show them to you.”“Pray do not; I would not read them for the world. I class all rhymes as jingles. I detest them. Even Will Shakespeare could never gain my attention for more than half-a-minute.”“Nevertheless, Mabel is clever, and her prize essay on ‘Idealism’ was undoubtedly the best in the school.”“Yes? Wonders will never cease,” remarked Lady Lushington; “but, to tell you the truth, I was more annoyed than pleased when she got the prize. I did not want her to leave school for a year, and I only made that rash promise believing it to be quite impossible for me to fulfil. However, now I must make the best of it; and as, thank goodness! she does not pose as a genius, and is a fine, handsome girl, I have no doubt I shall get her married before long.”“Oh, Lady Lushington! Could you bear to part with her?”“Indeed I could, my dear, to a good husband. I mean by that a man in a high position in society.”Annie was silent, looking prettily down. Lady Lushington glanced at her and noticed the charming contour of her face.“If only her eyelashes were a little darker and her eyebrows more marked, she would be a sweetly pretty girl,” she thought. But the lack of distinction in her face was not apparent at that moment.“You will have a good husband yourself some day, Miss Brooke; and if ever I can help you to bring such a desirable matter about, you may rely on me.”“Oh, thank you, thank you!” said Annie. “Poor little me! But I am only an orphan with just one dear uncle and little or no money. Lady Lushington, I am so happy here, and you are so very kind to me.”“Well, my dear, you are kind to me too. I believe we are of mutual benefit each to the other. Now, will you put on your hat and take those letters to the nearest post? You will just have time to get them in before we go downstairs todéjeuner.”Nothing could be more welcome to Annie than this last remark, for while she was talking she was wondering much in her clever little brain if she could carry out a scheme which had darted through it. The opportunity of posting the letters gave her just the loophole she desired. Taking the pile from the table, she accordingly ran out of the room, and a few minutes later was walking down the street which led to the post-office.On her way there she met Mabel Lushington and Priscilla. They were coming back after a long, rambling walk, and both girls were rather tired.“Whither away, Annie?” said Mabel in her cheerful voice.“To post some letters for your aunt, Lady Lushington.”“But the post does not go out until the evening, and that hill is so steep and difficult to climb, and it is almost the hour fordéjeuner,” objected Mabel. “Do turn back with us now, Annie; I shall so hate waiting lunch for you.”“Oh, give me the letters if you like,” said Priscilla; “I will run down the hill in no time, and come back again as quickly. I do not mind climbing hills in the least.”“They exhaust me frightfully,” said Mabel; “and I notice, too, that Annie gets a little out of breath when she walks up these impossible mountains too fast. That is a good idea, really. Give Priscie the letters, Annie, and come home with me; I want to talk to you.”“No, I can’t,” said Annie. “I must post them myself; they are important.”She darted away, pretending not to notice Mabel’s flushed, indignant face and Priscilla’s look of grave surprise. She reached the post-office and dropped all the letters she had written, except that one to Mrs Priestley, into the box. Mrs Priestley’s letter she kept safely in her pocket.“This must be delayed for perhaps a couple of days,” thought Annie. “In the meantime I shall have to talk to May. What a mercy,” was her next reflection, “that I was given the writing of the letter, and also the posting of it! Oh dear, dear! I think I can almost manage anything. I am sure May ought to be obliged to me, and so ought that tiresome Priscie. I would do anything for dear old May; but as to Priscie, I get more sick of her each minute. If only Lady Lushington would send her back to England I should feel safer. She is just the sort of girl who would wind herself to a grand confession, never caring how she dragged the rest of us into the mire with her. She is just precisely that sort of detestable martyr being. But she sha’n’t spoil my fun, or May’s fun either, if we can help it.”Annie appeared at lunch just a wee bit late, but looking remarkably pretty, and apologising in the most amiable tones for her unavoidable delay.“I am not very good at hills,” she explained to Lady Lushington. “They always set my heart beating rather badly. But never mind; the letters are posted and off our minds.”“One of those letters is by no means off my mind,” said Lady Lushington in a fierce tone, and glancing with reproachful eyes at Mabel. Annie bent towards her and said in a whisper (she could not be heard by Mabel and Priscilla as some servants came up at the moment to present dishes to the two young ladies):—“Please saynothingbefore Priscilla, I beg of you.”The voice was so earnest and so sympathetic, and the little face looked so appealing, that Lady Lushington patted the small white hand. Priscilla’s voice, however, was now heard:“It was a great pity, Annie, that you did run so fast to the post and then toil up that steep hill, for I offered to go for you; and besides, the English post does not leave before five o’clock.”Annie felt furious, but replied in her meekest voice:“I felt responsible for dear Lady Lushington’s letters.”Nothing more was said on the subject during lunch, and afterwards the ladies went off on a long expedition up into the mountains with some other friends whose acquaintance they had made in the hotel.It was not until that evening, when they were going to bed, that Mabel heard a light tap at her door, and the next moment Annie, in her pretty blue dressing-gown, with her fair hair falling about her shoulders and a brush in her hand, entered.“Have you time for a talk with poor little me, and has Priscie gone to bed?”“Dear me! yes,” said Mabel. “Priscilla has been in bed and asleep an hour ago. Come in, Annie, of course. I am dead with sleep myself, and if Aunt Hennie knew she might be annoyed. Now, what is it you want?”Annie took the letter addressed to Mrs Priestley out of her pocket.“To talk to you about this,” she said, and she sat calmly down on a chair and faced her tall companion. Mabel was also in the act of brushing out her luxuriant hair, and looked as handsome a creature as could be found anywhere, in her long, flowing, white dressing-gown. When she read the address on the letter her eyes darkened and some of the colour left her cheeks.“Are you writing to Mrs Priestley?” she said. “What about?”“I wrote that letter to-day,” said Annie, “to Lady Lushington’s dictation. The account has come in; total amount seventy pounds. Lady Lushington is furious. I told her all the lies I could, dear Mabel, about the dresses you hadnevergot, and in the end I managed to avert the evil day by asking Mrs Priestley to send the items. That satisfied Lady Lushington for the time. You will understand now why I could not accept Priscilla’s offer to post the letters, because I happened to have this one in my hand and did not wish it togo. It must not go for a day or two. In the meantime we must do something.”“What—what?” said Mabel. “Oh Annie, I am so frightened! I knew quite well that you would get me into an awful scrape about this. What is to be done? Nothing will ever make Aunt Hennie believe that I spent seventy pounds on my dress during my last term at school. I know she is very generous about money, but she is also careful and particular. You will see; I know her so well, Annie; and she will just get into a real passion about this and write to Mrs Lyttelton, and Mrs Lyttelton will go to see Mrs Priestley, and—”“Oh, I know,” said Annie, trembling a good deal. “But that must never be allowed.”“How are we to manage?” said Mabel. “Annie, we must do something;” and she dropped on her knees by her companion’s side and took one of her hands. “You came out here on purpose to help me,” she said. “You knew that I should get into trouble, and you said you would find a way out.”“Am not I trying to with all my might and main?” said Annie.“Well, but are you succeeding? I cannot see that keeping back that letter means much. Aunt Hennie will expect an answer, and—and—wire for it; she will really, if it does not come within a specified time; and she will give me such a talking to. Why, Annie, if the thing is discovered I shall be sent back to school—I know I shall—at the end of the holidays, and poor Priscie’s prospects will be ruined, and—and—you will be disgraced—”“We all three will be disgraced for ever and ever,” said Annie; “there is no doubt on that point. That is what makes the thing so terribly important. Something must be done, and at once—at once!”“But, Annie, what?”“I have a little scheme in my head; if you will keep up your courage and help me I believe we shall be successful.”“But what is it? Oh, do tell me! Oh, I am so terrified!”“The first thing we must be positive about is this,” said Annie: “Priscilla is to know nothing.”“Of course not,” said Mabel. “Mabel, I do wish we could get her back to England; she is so tiresome and in the way, and I have a great fear in my head about her.”“What is that? She is harmless enough, poor thing! Only, of course, she does look such a dowd. But, then, Aunt Henrietta has taken such a fancy to her.”“Oh, you are absolutely quite mistaken about that. Your aunt took a fancy to her on the first night because she spoke in rather an original way and, I suppose, looked handsome, which she does occasionally; and your aunt is very easily impressed by anything that she considers rather fine. But I assure you that it is my private opinion that she is sick of Priscilla by this time, and also rather ashamed of her appearance. Priscilla has no tact whatever—simply none. When does she help your aunt? When does she do anything to oblige others? She just flops about and looks sogaucheand awkward.”“Well, poor thing! she can’t help that. With Susan Martin as her dressmaker what chance has she?”“She is just an oddity,” said Annie; “and it is my impression that your aunt is tired of oddities. I can make her a little more tired, and I will.”“Oh Annie! Poor Priscie! and she does enjoy the mountain air so, and is such a splendid climber. You might as well let her have her holiday out. You are so frightfully clever, Annie; you can always achieve your purpose. But I think, if I were you, I would let poor old Priscie alone.”“I would if there were no danger,” said Annie.“Danger—in her direction? Whatdoyou mean?”“There is very grave danger,” said Annie—“very grave indeed. I am more afraid about Priscie than about anything else in the whole of this most unfortunate affair.”“Annie, whatdoyou mean?”“She is troubled with a conscience, bless you! and that conscience is talking to her every day and every night. Why, my dear Mabel, you can see the gnawings of self-reproach in her eyes and in her horrid melancholy manner. She is always in a dream, too, and starting up and having to shake herself when one talks to her suddenly. I know well what it means; she is on the verge of a confession.”“What?” said Mabel.“Yes, that is the danger we have to apprehend; at least it is one of the dangers. One day, for the sake of relieving her own miserable conscience, she will go to your aunt and tell her everything. Then where shall we be?”“But she could not be so frightfully mean; I never, never would believe it of her.”“Mark my words,” said Annie—“people with consciences, who believe they have committed a crime or a sin, never think of anybody but themselves. The thought of relieving their own miserable natures is the only thought that occurs to them. Now, we must get hold of that conscience of Priscie’s, and if it is going to be a stumbling-block we must cart her back to England.”“We must indeed,” said Mabel. “For all that I say I don’t believe that she could be so mean.”“Oh, nonsense,” said Annie; “I know better.” Mabel crouched on the floor by Annie’s side, her hand lying on Annie’s lap.“You are wonderful,” she said after a pause, “quite wonderful. I can’t imagine how you think of all these things, and of course you are never wrong. Still—poor Priscie! you won’t make things very hard for her, Annie, will you?”“I know exactly what I mean to do,” said Annie. “First of all I have to get you out of your present scrape, and then I shall go boldly to Priscie and find out her pent-up thoughts, and if they are in the direction I am fearing, I shall soon find means to protect ourselves from her and her conscience. But perhaps that is enough about her. On the present occasion we have got to think of you and Mrs Priestley.”“Oh, indeed, yes! Oh, I am terrified!”“Listen to me. But for my management at lunch to-day, Lady Lushington was so indignant that she would have blurted out the whole thing and asked you what you meant by running up such an outrageous bill. You would have given yourself away on the spot, for you have no presence of mind in an emergency. Now I am preparing you. Lady Lushington will speak to you to-morrow, and you are faithfully to describe the dresses that I have, told her you possess. Oh, I know you have not got them at all, but that does not matter; I will give you a list of them in the morning, and you are to hold to that list. But now, listen. This is the main point. At the same time you are to assure your aunt that Mrs Priestley has made a mistake and put down some one else’s dresses to you, for you are positive your bill is nearer forty pounds than seventy.”“Then how in the world am I to pay the thirty pounds to Mrs Priestley?”“I am coming to that. There is a lovely, lovely necklace in one of those shops full of articles ofvertuin the town. It is worth, I know for a fact from fifty to sixty pounds; but I think your aunt could get it for forty. Now I want you to coax her to give it to you.”“Oh Annie, whatisthe use? Is it likely that Aunt Henrietta, when she is so furious with me about a bill at my dressmaker’s, would spend forty pounds on one necklace just for me?”“She is absolutely certain to do it if you manage her rightly; and I will help you. The necklace is a great bargain even at forty pounds. It is of real old pearls in a wonderful silver setting. Now a beautiful old necklace, once the property of a French marquise, which can be bought for forty pounds is a bargain. Lady Lushington loves making bargains. You must secure it.”“Well, Annie, even if I do get it—and I am sure I do not care a bit for the old thing at the present moment—what am I to do with it?”“You are a stupid, May; you really are. Your aunt, Lady Lushington, will go with you, and probably with me, to the shop. We must take her there early for fear that some one else snaps up the bargain. She will buy the necklace and give it to you. She will tell you to be careful of it, and then, according to her way, she will forget all about it.”“Yes, perhaps so; but still, I do not see daylight.”“Well, I do,” said Annie. “We will sell the necklace at another shop for thirty pounds, and send the money immediately to Mrs Priestley. At the same time I will write her a long letter and tell her that she must take thirty pounds off her bill, and apologise for having, owing to a press of customers, put some one else’s account to yours. Thus all will be right. Your aunt Hennie will not object to paying forty pounds for your school dresses, so that will be settled; and we may be able to get a little more than thirty pounds for the pearl necklace, and thus have some funds in hand towards Mrs Lyttelton’s Christmas school bill.”“Oh,” said Mabel, “it is awful—awful! Really, I sometimes think my head will give way under the strain. Of course it may succeed; but there are so many ‘ifs.’ Suppose the man to whom we are selling the necklace shows it in his window the next day; what will Aunt Henrietta say then?”“You goose!” replied Annie. “We shall be in Zermatt by then; and I will make an arrangement with the shopman to keep the necklace out of the window until we are off. Now I have everything as clear as daylight. You must coax and coax as you know how for the beautiful necklace, and you must get your aunt Henrietta, if possible, to pay forty pounds for it. That is the only thing to be done, but it just needs tact and resource. I shall be present with my tact and resource. I will allow you to be alone with your aunt to-morrow morning, and then, when I think she has scolded you long enough, I will come innocently into the room, and you must start the subject of the necklace; then trust to me for the rest. Mrs Priestley is asked in this letter, which will never go—for the one with the thirty pounds will take its place—to send the full items of her account to Zermatt. She will do so; and your aunt will be so much in love with you for your economy, and so full of remorse at having accused you of extravagance, that she will probably give you another necklace when there, which one you can keep. The main thing, however, is to get through this little business to-morrow. Now go to bed and to sleep, May Flower, and never say again that your Annie does not help you out of scrapes.”

But Lady Lushington, when she took a prejudice against Annie Brooke, reckoned without her host. Annie was far too clever to allow this state of things to continue long.

The next day the three girls and Lady Lushington starteden routefor Interlaken. There they put up at one of the most fashionable hotels, and there Annie began to find her feet and gradually to undermine Lady Lushington’s prejudice against her. Even if Mabel had not whispered the disconcerting fact to her that she had not made a good, impression on her aunt, Annie was far too sharp not to discover it for herself when Mabel said to her on that first night in the Grand Hotel in Paris, “I must tell you the truth, Annie; you are a failure so far; you have not pleased Aunt Henrietta, and Priscie has. I don’t know what I shall do if you leave me, but I know Aunt Hennie will send you back pretty sharp to England if you don’t alter your tactics, and how I am ever to meet all that lies before me if this happens is more than I can fathom.”

Annie had assured her friend that she need not be the least afraid, and, knowing the truth, or part of the truth, took her measures accordingly.

They had not been settled at the Belle Vue Hotel, Interlaken, more than two days before Lady Lushington, who was an exceedingly selfish, worldly woman, although quite kind-hearted, began to alter her mind with regard to both Annie Brooke and Priscilla Weir.

Priscilla, notwithstanding her fine and impressive eyes, her honest manner, and her earnest wish to make herself pleasant, looked undoubtedlygauchein the old-fashioned garments which were mostly made for her by poor Susan Martin. Lady Lushington found that though people remarked on Priscilla when she walked with the others in the fashionable part of the town or sat with them when they listened to the band or took her place in thesalle-à-mangerby their sides, yet those glances were by no means ones of admiration. The girl looked oppressed by a certain care, and dowdy beyond all words. Lady Lushington liked her, and yet she did not like her. She felt, however, bound to keep to her compact—to make the best of poor Priscilla. Accordingly, she told her friends that Priscilla Weir was a genius, and a little quaint with regard to her clothes, and that, in consequence, she had to put up with her peculiar dress.

“But she is such an honest good creature,” said Lady Lushington in conclusion, “that I am quite glad to have her as a companion for Mabel.”

Now the people to whom Lady Lushington gave this confidence were by no means interested in Priscilla’s predilection for quaint clothes. They pronounced her an oddity, and left her to the fate of all oddities—namely, to herself. Annie, on the contrary, who made the best of everything, and who looked quite ravishingly pretty in the smart frocks which Parker, by Lady Lushington’s desire, supplied her with, came in for that measure of praise which was denied to poor Priscie. Annie looked very modest, too, and had such charming, unaffected, ingenuous blue eyes, the blue eyes almost of a baby.

Lady Lushington found her first prejudices melting out of sight as she watched Annie’s grace and noticed her apparent unselfishness.

It was Annie’s cue to be unselfish during these days, and Lady Lushington began to form really golden opinions with regard to her character. She had been very nice on the journey, taking the most uncomfortable seat and thinking of every one’s comfort except her own. She had been delightful when they reached Interlaken, putting up with a very small and hot bedroom almost in the roof of the hotel. And now she began to make herself useful to Lady Lushington.

This great lady had a vast amount of voluminous correspondence. She liked writing to her friends in her own illegible hand, but she hated writing business letters. Now Annie wrote an exceedingly neat and legible hand, and when she offered herself as Lady Lushington’s amanuensis, making the request in the prettiest voice imaginable, and looking so eagerly desirous to help the good woman, Mabel’s aunt felt her last prejudice against Annie Brooke melting out of sight.

“Really, my dear,” she said, “you are good-natured. It would be a comfort to dictate my letters to you, but I am stupid about business letters. You do not mind if I dictate them very slowly?”

“Oh no,” said Annie, “by no means; and I should so love to write them for you. You do such a great deal for poor little me that if there is any small way in which I can help you I shall be more than glad. Dear Lady Lushington, you don’t know how I feel your kindness.”

“You are very good to say so, Miss Brooke. I have invited you here because you are Mabel’s friend.”

“Sweet Mabel!” murmured Annie; “her very greatest friend. But now, may I help you?”

“Well, bring those letters over here—that pile on the table. We may as well get through them.”

Annie immediately found note-paper, blotting-paper, pens and ink, also a supply of foreign stamps and post-cards. She laid the letters in a pile on Lady Lushington’s lap.

“Now,” she said, “if you will read them aloud to me and tell me what to say, I will write as slowly as ever you like. You can lean back in your comfortable chair; we will get through them as quickly as possible.”

This conversation took place on the first day when Annie wrote letters to Lady Lushington’s dictation. Soon the thing became a habit, and Lady Lushington secured the services of Miss Brooke for a couple of hours daily. She quite enjoyed it. It was so much less trouble, sitting lazily in her chair and getting that smart, pretty little thing to do the toilsome work for her. She felt that Annie was assuredly pretty, and much more interesting than poor Priscilla.

At last, on a day when the ladies had been at Interlaken for over a week, and were meaning to move on to Zermatt, Lady Lushington opened a letter, the contents of which caused her face to flush and her eyes to blaze with annoyance.

“Really,” she said, “this is too bad; this is simply abominable!”

“What is the matter?” asked Annie.

She had guessed, however, what the matter was, and her heart beat as she made the remark, for that morning she had seen, lying on the breakfast-table amongst a pile of letters directed to Lady Lushington, one in the well-known writing of Mrs Priestley; and if Annie had any doubt on that point, the dressmaker’s address was printed on the flap of the envelope. Her innocent eyes, however, never looked more innocent as she glanced up now from the blank sheet of paper on which she was about to write.

“Of course you know nothing about it, child,” said Lady Lushington, “but it is beyond belief; Mabel’s extravagance exceeds all bounds; I will not permit it for a single moment.”

“Mabel’s extravagance?” said Annie, looking surprised. “But surely dear Mabel is not extravagant. I have never, never noticed it; I assure you I haven’t.”

“Then what do you say to this?” said Lady Lushington. “That odious woman Priestley sends me a bill for one term’s clothing; total amount seventy pounds!”

“Seventy pounds,” said Annie, “for Mabel’s dress?” She pretended to look shocked. “It is impossible,” she said slowly. “There must be a mistake.”

“Of course there is a mistake. That abominable woman thinks that I am so rich that I don’t mind paying any amount. But she will learn that I am not to be imposed upon.”

“What do you think you will say to her?” asked Annie.

“I am sure I don’t know. I had best speak to Mabel herself.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that,” said Annie. “May gets so confused; dear May has no head for business; she won’t have the slightest idea what dress she did get. I know there was that lovely, expensive white satin for the school dance, and that beautiful dress ofcrêpe-de-Chinewith pearly trimmings which she wore on the day of the break-up—the day when she received her great honour, her prize for literature; and there was that pale-blue evening-dress of hers, and the rose-coloured silk.”

“But I don’t remember those dresses at all. Where are they now?”

“I dare say she has left them at school,” said Annie.

“Left them at school?”

“She would probably not think them fine enough for you.”

“What absurdity! And even if she did get such uncalled-for, such unsuitable dresses, the sum total from a country dressmaker would not amount to seventy pounds.”

“Well, I tell you what I would do if I were you,” said Annie. “If you will let me, I will write in your name for the items. Mrs Priestley has only sent you ‘To account rendered,’ has she not?”

“That is a good idea,” said Lady Lushington. “I must speak to Mabel about her frocks when she appears. As a matter of fact, I do not mind what I spend on her now that she has come out, or partly come out, for of course she won’t be really introduced into society until she is presented next year. But seventy pounds for one schoolgirl’s wardrobe for a single term is too much.”

“Then I may write?” said Annie, her hand trembling a little.

“Certainly. Tell the woman to send all items at once here. Really, this has worried me.”

Lady Lushington did not notice that, notwithstanding all Annie’s apparent coolness, there were additional spots of colour on her cheeks, and that her hand shook a little as she penned the necessary words. Suppose the majestic Mrs Priestley recognised her handwriting! There was no help for it now, however, and any delay in grappling with the evil hour was welcome.

The letter was written and laid with several others on the table. Lady Lushington remarked after a minute’s pause:

“I may as well confide in you, Miss Brooke, that nothing ever astonished me more than Mabel’s success in gaining that literature prize; for you know, my dear, between you and me, she is not at all clever.”

“Oh, how you mistake her!” said Annie, with enthusiasm. “Dear Mabel does not care to talk about her deepest feelings or about those magnificent thoughts which visit her mind.”

“She has no thoughts, my dear, except the silliest,” said Mabel’s aunt, with a laugh.

“Oh, how you wrong her! Why, she is a poetess.”

“A what?” said Lady Lushington.

“She writes poems.”

“Nonsense! I don’t believe you.”

“I can show them to you.”

“Pray do not; I would not read them for the world. I class all rhymes as jingles. I detest them. Even Will Shakespeare could never gain my attention for more than half-a-minute.”

“Nevertheless, Mabel is clever, and her prize essay on ‘Idealism’ was undoubtedly the best in the school.”

“Yes? Wonders will never cease,” remarked Lady Lushington; “but, to tell you the truth, I was more annoyed than pleased when she got the prize. I did not want her to leave school for a year, and I only made that rash promise believing it to be quite impossible for me to fulfil. However, now I must make the best of it; and as, thank goodness! she does not pose as a genius, and is a fine, handsome girl, I have no doubt I shall get her married before long.”

“Oh, Lady Lushington! Could you bear to part with her?”

“Indeed I could, my dear, to a good husband. I mean by that a man in a high position in society.”

Annie was silent, looking prettily down. Lady Lushington glanced at her and noticed the charming contour of her face.

“If only her eyelashes were a little darker and her eyebrows more marked, she would be a sweetly pretty girl,” she thought. But the lack of distinction in her face was not apparent at that moment.

“You will have a good husband yourself some day, Miss Brooke; and if ever I can help you to bring such a desirable matter about, you may rely on me.”

“Oh, thank you, thank you!” said Annie. “Poor little me! But I am only an orphan with just one dear uncle and little or no money. Lady Lushington, I am so happy here, and you are so very kind to me.”

“Well, my dear, you are kind to me too. I believe we are of mutual benefit each to the other. Now, will you put on your hat and take those letters to the nearest post? You will just have time to get them in before we go downstairs todéjeuner.”

Nothing could be more welcome to Annie than this last remark, for while she was talking she was wondering much in her clever little brain if she could carry out a scheme which had darted through it. The opportunity of posting the letters gave her just the loophole she desired. Taking the pile from the table, she accordingly ran out of the room, and a few minutes later was walking down the street which led to the post-office.

On her way there she met Mabel Lushington and Priscilla. They were coming back after a long, rambling walk, and both girls were rather tired.

“Whither away, Annie?” said Mabel in her cheerful voice.

“To post some letters for your aunt, Lady Lushington.”

“But the post does not go out until the evening, and that hill is so steep and difficult to climb, and it is almost the hour fordéjeuner,” objected Mabel. “Do turn back with us now, Annie; I shall so hate waiting lunch for you.”

“Oh, give me the letters if you like,” said Priscilla; “I will run down the hill in no time, and come back again as quickly. I do not mind climbing hills in the least.”

“They exhaust me frightfully,” said Mabel; “and I notice, too, that Annie gets a little out of breath when she walks up these impossible mountains too fast. That is a good idea, really. Give Priscie the letters, Annie, and come home with me; I want to talk to you.”

“No, I can’t,” said Annie. “I must post them myself; they are important.”

She darted away, pretending not to notice Mabel’s flushed, indignant face and Priscilla’s look of grave surprise. She reached the post-office and dropped all the letters she had written, except that one to Mrs Priestley, into the box. Mrs Priestley’s letter she kept safely in her pocket.

“This must be delayed for perhaps a couple of days,” thought Annie. “In the meantime I shall have to talk to May. What a mercy,” was her next reflection, “that I was given the writing of the letter, and also the posting of it! Oh dear, dear! I think I can almost manage anything. I am sure May ought to be obliged to me, and so ought that tiresome Priscie. I would do anything for dear old May; but as to Priscie, I get more sick of her each minute. If only Lady Lushington would send her back to England I should feel safer. She is just the sort of girl who would wind herself to a grand confession, never caring how she dragged the rest of us into the mire with her. She is just precisely that sort of detestable martyr being. But she sha’n’t spoil my fun, or May’s fun either, if we can help it.”

Annie appeared at lunch just a wee bit late, but looking remarkably pretty, and apologising in the most amiable tones for her unavoidable delay.

“I am not very good at hills,” she explained to Lady Lushington. “They always set my heart beating rather badly. But never mind; the letters are posted and off our minds.”

“One of those letters is by no means off my mind,” said Lady Lushington in a fierce tone, and glancing with reproachful eyes at Mabel. Annie bent towards her and said in a whisper (she could not be heard by Mabel and Priscilla as some servants came up at the moment to present dishes to the two young ladies):—

“Please saynothingbefore Priscilla, I beg of you.”

The voice was so earnest and so sympathetic, and the little face looked so appealing, that Lady Lushington patted the small white hand. Priscilla’s voice, however, was now heard:

“It was a great pity, Annie, that you did run so fast to the post and then toil up that steep hill, for I offered to go for you; and besides, the English post does not leave before five o’clock.”

Annie felt furious, but replied in her meekest voice:

“I felt responsible for dear Lady Lushington’s letters.”

Nothing more was said on the subject during lunch, and afterwards the ladies went off on a long expedition up into the mountains with some other friends whose acquaintance they had made in the hotel.

It was not until that evening, when they were going to bed, that Mabel heard a light tap at her door, and the next moment Annie, in her pretty blue dressing-gown, with her fair hair falling about her shoulders and a brush in her hand, entered.

“Have you time for a talk with poor little me, and has Priscie gone to bed?”

“Dear me! yes,” said Mabel. “Priscilla has been in bed and asleep an hour ago. Come in, Annie, of course. I am dead with sleep myself, and if Aunt Hennie knew she might be annoyed. Now, what is it you want?”

Annie took the letter addressed to Mrs Priestley out of her pocket.

“To talk to you about this,” she said, and she sat calmly down on a chair and faced her tall companion. Mabel was also in the act of brushing out her luxuriant hair, and looked as handsome a creature as could be found anywhere, in her long, flowing, white dressing-gown. When she read the address on the letter her eyes darkened and some of the colour left her cheeks.

“Are you writing to Mrs Priestley?” she said. “What about?”

“I wrote that letter to-day,” said Annie, “to Lady Lushington’s dictation. The account has come in; total amount seventy pounds. Lady Lushington is furious. I told her all the lies I could, dear Mabel, about the dresses you hadnevergot, and in the end I managed to avert the evil day by asking Mrs Priestley to send the items. That satisfied Lady Lushington for the time. You will understand now why I could not accept Priscilla’s offer to post the letters, because I happened to have this one in my hand and did not wish it togo. It must not go for a day or two. In the meantime we must do something.”

“What—what?” said Mabel. “Oh Annie, I am so frightened! I knew quite well that you would get me into an awful scrape about this. What is to be done? Nothing will ever make Aunt Hennie believe that I spent seventy pounds on my dress during my last term at school. I know she is very generous about money, but she is also careful and particular. You will see; I know her so well, Annie; and she will just get into a real passion about this and write to Mrs Lyttelton, and Mrs Lyttelton will go to see Mrs Priestley, and—”

“Oh, I know,” said Annie, trembling a good deal. “But that must never be allowed.”

“How are we to manage?” said Mabel. “Annie, we must do something;” and she dropped on her knees by her companion’s side and took one of her hands. “You came out here on purpose to help me,” she said. “You knew that I should get into trouble, and you said you would find a way out.”

“Am not I trying to with all my might and main?” said Annie.

“Well, but are you succeeding? I cannot see that keeping back that letter means much. Aunt Hennie will expect an answer, and—and—wire for it; she will really, if it does not come within a specified time; and she will give me such a talking to. Why, Annie, if the thing is discovered I shall be sent back to school—I know I shall—at the end of the holidays, and poor Priscie’s prospects will be ruined, and—and—you will be disgraced—”

“We all three will be disgraced for ever and ever,” said Annie; “there is no doubt on that point. That is what makes the thing so terribly important. Something must be done, and at once—at once!”

“But, Annie, what?”

“I have a little scheme in my head; if you will keep up your courage and help me I believe we shall be successful.”

“But what is it? Oh, do tell me! Oh, I am so terrified!”

“The first thing we must be positive about is this,” said Annie: “Priscilla is to know nothing.”

“Of course not,” said Mabel. “Mabel, I do wish we could get her back to England; she is so tiresome and in the way, and I have a great fear in my head about her.”

“What is that? She is harmless enough, poor thing! Only, of course, she does look such a dowd. But, then, Aunt Henrietta has taken such a fancy to her.”

“Oh, you are absolutely quite mistaken about that. Your aunt took a fancy to her on the first night because she spoke in rather an original way and, I suppose, looked handsome, which she does occasionally; and your aunt is very easily impressed by anything that she considers rather fine. But I assure you that it is my private opinion that she is sick of Priscilla by this time, and also rather ashamed of her appearance. Priscilla has no tact whatever—simply none. When does she help your aunt? When does she do anything to oblige others? She just flops about and looks sogaucheand awkward.”

“Well, poor thing! she can’t help that. With Susan Martin as her dressmaker what chance has she?”

“She is just an oddity,” said Annie; “and it is my impression that your aunt is tired of oddities. I can make her a little more tired, and I will.”

“Oh Annie! Poor Priscie! and she does enjoy the mountain air so, and is such a splendid climber. You might as well let her have her holiday out. You are so frightfully clever, Annie; you can always achieve your purpose. But I think, if I were you, I would let poor old Priscie alone.”

“I would if there were no danger,” said Annie.

“Danger—in her direction? Whatdoyou mean?”

“There is very grave danger,” said Annie—“very grave indeed. I am more afraid about Priscie than about anything else in the whole of this most unfortunate affair.”

“Annie, whatdoyou mean?”

“She is troubled with a conscience, bless you! and that conscience is talking to her every day and every night. Why, my dear Mabel, you can see the gnawings of self-reproach in her eyes and in her horrid melancholy manner. She is always in a dream, too, and starting up and having to shake herself when one talks to her suddenly. I know well what it means; she is on the verge of a confession.”

“What?” said Mabel.

“Yes, that is the danger we have to apprehend; at least it is one of the dangers. One day, for the sake of relieving her own miserable conscience, she will go to your aunt and tell her everything. Then where shall we be?”

“But she could not be so frightfully mean; I never, never would believe it of her.”

“Mark my words,” said Annie—“people with consciences, who believe they have committed a crime or a sin, never think of anybody but themselves. The thought of relieving their own miserable natures is the only thought that occurs to them. Now, we must get hold of that conscience of Priscie’s, and if it is going to be a stumbling-block we must cart her back to England.”

“We must indeed,” said Mabel. “For all that I say I don’t believe that she could be so mean.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Annie; “I know better.” Mabel crouched on the floor by Annie’s side, her hand lying on Annie’s lap.

“You are wonderful,” she said after a pause, “quite wonderful. I can’t imagine how you think of all these things, and of course you are never wrong. Still—poor Priscie! you won’t make things very hard for her, Annie, will you?”

“I know exactly what I mean to do,” said Annie. “First of all I have to get you out of your present scrape, and then I shall go boldly to Priscie and find out her pent-up thoughts, and if they are in the direction I am fearing, I shall soon find means to protect ourselves from her and her conscience. But perhaps that is enough about her. On the present occasion we have got to think of you and Mrs Priestley.”

“Oh, indeed, yes! Oh, I am terrified!”

“Listen to me. But for my management at lunch to-day, Lady Lushington was so indignant that she would have blurted out the whole thing and asked you what you meant by running up such an outrageous bill. You would have given yourself away on the spot, for you have no presence of mind in an emergency. Now I am preparing you. Lady Lushington will speak to you to-morrow, and you are faithfully to describe the dresses that I have, told her you possess. Oh, I know you have not got them at all, but that does not matter; I will give you a list of them in the morning, and you are to hold to that list. But now, listen. This is the main point. At the same time you are to assure your aunt that Mrs Priestley has made a mistake and put down some one else’s dresses to you, for you are positive your bill is nearer forty pounds than seventy.”

“Then how in the world am I to pay the thirty pounds to Mrs Priestley?”

“I am coming to that. There is a lovely, lovely necklace in one of those shops full of articles ofvertuin the town. It is worth, I know for a fact from fifty to sixty pounds; but I think your aunt could get it for forty. Now I want you to coax her to give it to you.”

“Oh Annie, whatisthe use? Is it likely that Aunt Henrietta, when she is so furious with me about a bill at my dressmaker’s, would spend forty pounds on one necklace just for me?”

“She is absolutely certain to do it if you manage her rightly; and I will help you. The necklace is a great bargain even at forty pounds. It is of real old pearls in a wonderful silver setting. Now a beautiful old necklace, once the property of a French marquise, which can be bought for forty pounds is a bargain. Lady Lushington loves making bargains. You must secure it.”

“Well, Annie, even if I do get it—and I am sure I do not care a bit for the old thing at the present moment—what am I to do with it?”

“You are a stupid, May; you really are. Your aunt, Lady Lushington, will go with you, and probably with me, to the shop. We must take her there early for fear that some one else snaps up the bargain. She will buy the necklace and give it to you. She will tell you to be careful of it, and then, according to her way, she will forget all about it.”

“Yes, perhaps so; but still, I do not see daylight.”

“Well, I do,” said Annie. “We will sell the necklace at another shop for thirty pounds, and send the money immediately to Mrs Priestley. At the same time I will write her a long letter and tell her that she must take thirty pounds off her bill, and apologise for having, owing to a press of customers, put some one else’s account to yours. Thus all will be right. Your aunt Hennie will not object to paying forty pounds for your school dresses, so that will be settled; and we may be able to get a little more than thirty pounds for the pearl necklace, and thus have some funds in hand towards Mrs Lyttelton’s Christmas school bill.”

“Oh,” said Mabel, “it is awful—awful! Really, I sometimes think my head will give way under the strain. Of course it may succeed; but there are so many ‘ifs.’ Suppose the man to whom we are selling the necklace shows it in his window the next day; what will Aunt Henrietta say then?”

“You goose!” replied Annie. “We shall be in Zermatt by then; and I will make an arrangement with the shopman to keep the necklace out of the window until we are off. Now I have everything as clear as daylight. You must coax and coax as you know how for the beautiful necklace, and you must get your aunt Henrietta, if possible, to pay forty pounds for it. That is the only thing to be done, but it just needs tact and resource. I shall be present with my tact and resource. I will allow you to be alone with your aunt to-morrow morning, and then, when I think she has scolded you long enough, I will come innocently into the room, and you must start the subject of the necklace; then trust to me for the rest. Mrs Priestley is asked in this letter, which will never go—for the one with the thirty pounds will take its place—to send the full items of her account to Zermatt. She will do so; and your aunt will be so much in love with you for your economy, and so full of remorse at having accused you of extravagance, that she will probably give you another necklace when there, which one you can keep. The main thing, however, is to get through this little business to-morrow. Now go to bed and to sleep, May Flower, and never say again that your Annie does not help you out of scrapes.”

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