“It’s this,” said Prissie, clasping her hands hard, and speaking in her most emphatic and distressful way. “There are unkind things being said of Maggie, and there’s one girl who is horrid to her – horrid! I want you not to believe a word that girl says.”

“What girl do you mean?”

“You were walking with her just now.”

“Really, Miss Peel, you are the most extraordinary – ”

But Maggie Oliphant’s clear, sweet voice interrupted them.

“Had we not better come into the house?” she said. “The door has been open for quite half a minute.”

Poor Prissie rushed in first, covered with shame; Miss Field hastened after, to bear her company; and Hammond and Maggie brought up the rear.

Chapter Twenty
A Painter

The Marshalls were always at home to their friends on Friday afternoons, and there were already several guests in the beautiful, quaint old drawing-room when the quartette entered. Mrs Marshall, her white hair looking lovely under her soft lace cap, came forward to meet her visitors. Her kind eyes looked with appreciation and welcome at one and all. Blushing and shamefaced Prissie received a pleasant word of greeting, which seemed in some wonderful way to steady her nerves. Hammond and Maggie were received as special and very dear friends, and Helen Marshall, the old lady’s pretty grand-daughter, rushed forward to embrace her particular friend, Constance Field.

Maggie felt sore; she scarcely knew why. Her voice was bright, her eyes shining, her cheeks radiant in their rich and lovely bloom. But there was a quality in her voice which Hammond recognised – a certain ring which meant defiance, and which prophesied to those who knew her well that one of her bad half-hours was not very far off.

Maggie seated herself near a girl who was a comparative stranger and began to talk. Hammond drew near, and made a third in the conversation. Maggie talked in the brilliant, somewhat reckless fashion which she occasionally adopted. Hammond listened, now and then uttered a short sentence, now and then was silent, with disapproval in his eyes.

Maggie read their expression like a book.

“He shall be angry with me,” she said to herself. Her words became a little wilder. The sentiments she uttered were the reverse of those Hammond held.

Soon a few old friends came up. They were jolly, merry, good-humoured girls, who were all prepared to look up to Maggie Oliphant, and to worship her beauty and cleverness if she would allow them. Maggie welcomed the girls with effusion, let them metaphorically sit at her feet, and proceeded to disenchant them as hard as she could.

Some garbled accounts of the auction at St. Benet’s had reached them, and they were anxious to get a full report from Miss Oliphant. Did she not think it a scandalous sort of thing to have occurred?

“Not at all,” answered Maggie in her sweetest tones; “it was capital fun, I assure you.”

“Were you really there?” asked Miss Duncan, the eldest of the girls. “We heard it, of course, but could scarcely believe it possible.”

“Of course I was there,” replied Maggie. “Whenever there is anything really amusing going on, I am always in the thick of it.”

“Well!” Emily Duncan looked at her sister Susan. Susan raised her brows. Hammond took a photograph from a table which stood near, and pretended to examine it.

“Shall I tell you about the auction?” asked Maggie.

“Oh, please, if you would be so kind. I suppose, as you were present, such a thing could not really lower the standard of the college?” These words came from Susan Duncan, who looked at Hammond as she spoke. She was his cousin, and very fond of him.

“Please tell us about the auction,” he said, looking full at Maggie.

“I will,” she replied, answering his gaze with a flash of repressed irritation. “The auction was splendid fun! One of our girls was in debt, and she had to sell her things. Oh, it was capital! I wish you could have seen her acting as her own auctioneer. Some of us were greedy, and wanted her best things. I was one of those. She sold a sealskin jacket, an expensive one, quite new. There is a legend in the college that eighty guineas were expended on it. Well, I bid for the sealskin, and it was knocked down to me for ten. It is a little too big for me, of course, but when it is cut to my figure, it will make a superb winter garment.”

Maggie was clothed now in velvet and sable; nothing could be richer than her attire; nothing more mocking than her words.

“You were fortunate,” said Susan Duncan. “You got your sealskin a great bargain. Didn’t she, Geoffrey?”

“I don’t think so,” replied Hammond.

“Why not? Oh, do tell us why not,” cried the sisters, eagerly.

He bowed to them, laughed as lightly as Maggie would have done, and said, in a careless tone: “My reasons are complex, and too many to mention. I will only say now that what is objectionable to possess can never be a bargain to obtain. In my opinion, sealskin jackets are detestable.”

With these words he strode across the room, and seated himself with a sigh of relief by Priscilla’s side.

“What are you doing all by yourself?” he said, cheerfully. “Is no one attending to you? Are you always to be left like a poor little forsaken mouse in the background?”

“I am not at all lonely,” said Prissie.

“I thought you hated to be alone.”

“I did, the other day, in that drawing-room; but not in this. People are all kind in this.”

“You are right. Our hostess is most genial and sympathetic.”

“And the guests are nice, too,” said Prissie; “at least, they look nice.”

“Ay, but you must not be taken in by appearances. Some of them only look nice.”

“Do you mean?” began Prissie in her abrupt, anxious voice.

Hammond took alarm. He remembered her peculiar outspokenness.

“I don’t mean anything,” he said, hastily. “By the way, are you fond of pictures?”

“I have scarcely ever seen any.”

“That does not matter. I know by your face that you can appreciate some pictures.”

“But, really, I know nothing of art.”

“Never mind. If the painter who paints knows you– ”

“The painter knows me? I have never seen an artist in my life.”

“Nevertheless, there are some artists in the world who have conceived of characters like yours. There are some good pictures in this house – shall I show you one or two?”

Prissie sprang to her feet.

“You are most kind,” she said, effusively. “I really don’t know how to thank you.”

“You need not thank me at all; or, at any rate, not in such a loud voice, nor so impressively. Our neighbours will think I have bestowed half a kingdom upon you.”

Prissie blushed, and looked down.

“Don’t be shocked with me,” said Hammond; “I can read your grateful heart. Come this way.” They passed Maggie Oliphant and her two or three remaining satellites. Prissie looked at her with longing, and tripped awkwardly against her chair. Hammond walked past Maggie as if she did not exist to him. Maggie nodded affectionately to Priscilla, and followed the back of Hammond’s head and shoulders with a supercilious, amused smile.

Hammond opened the outer drawing-room door. “Where are we going?” asked Priscilla. “Are not the pictures here?”

“Some are here, but the best are in the picture gallery – here to the left, and down these steps. Now, I’m going to introduce to you a new world.”

He pushed aside a heavy curtain, and Prissie found herself in a rather small room, lighted from the roof. It contained in all about six or eight pictures, each the work of a master.

Hammond walked straight across the gallery to a picture which occupied a wall by itself at the further end. It represented a summer scene of deep repose. There was water in the foreground; in the back, tall forest trees in the fresh, rich foliage of June. Overhead was a sunset sky, its saffron and rosy tints reflected in the water below. The master who painted the picture was Corot.

Hammond motioned Priscilla to sit down opposite to it.

“There is summer,” he said; “peace, absolute repose. You have not to go to it; it comes to you.”

He did not say any more, but walked away to look at another picture in a different part of the gallery.

Prissie clasped her hands; all the agitation and eagerness went out of her face. She leant back in her chair. Her attitude partook of the quality of the picture, and became restful. Hammond did not disturb her for several moments.

“I am going to show you something different now,” he said, coming up to her almost with reluctance. “There is one sort of rest; I will now show you a higher. Here, stand so. The light falls well from this angle. Now, what do you see?”

“I don’t understand it,” said Prissie, after a long, deep gaze.

“Never mind, you see something. Tell me what you see.”

Priscilla looked again at the picture.

“I see a woman,” she said at last, in a slow, pained kind of voice. “I can’t see her face very well, but I know by the way she lies back in that chair, that she is old, and dreadfully tired. Oh, yes, I know well that she is tired – see her hand stretched out there – her hand and her arm – how thin they are – how worn – and – ”

“Hard worked,” interrupted Hammond. “Anyone can see by the attitude of that hand, by the starting veins and the wrinkles, that the woman has gone through a life of labour. Well, she does not occupy the whole of the picture. You see before you a tired-out worker. Don’t be so unhappy about her. Look up a little higher in the picture. Observe for yourself that her toils are ended.”

“Who is that other figure?” said Priscilla. “A woman too, but young and strong. How glad she looks, and how kind. She is carrying a little child in her arms. Who is she? What does she mean?”

“That woman, so grand and strong, represents Death, but not under the old metaphor. She comes with renewed life – the child is the type of that – she comes as a deliverer. See, she is touching that poor worn-out creature, who is so tired that she can scarcely hold her head up again. Death, with a new aspect, and a new grand strength in her face, is saying to this woman, ‘Come with me now to your rest. It is all over,’ Death says: ‘all the trouble and perplexity and strife. Come away with me and rest.’ The name of that picture is ‘The Deliverer.’ It is the work of a painter who can preach a sermon, write a book, deliver an oration, and sing a song, all through the medium of his brush. I won’t trouble you with his name just now. You will hear plenty of him and his wonderful, great pictures by-and-by, if you love art as I do.”

“Thank you,” said Prissie, simply. Some tears stole down her cheeks. She did not know she was crying; she did not attempt to wipe them away.

Chapter Twenty One
“I Detest It.”

Shortly after the girls got home that evening, they received letters in their rooms to inform them that Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston had come to the resolution not to report the affair of the auction to the college authorities. They would trust to the honour of the students at St. Benet’s not to allow such a proceeding to occur again, and would say nothing further on the matter.

Prissie’s eyes filled again with tears as she read the carefully worded note. Holding it open in her hand she rushed to Maggie’s room and knocked. To her surprise, instead of the usual cheerful “Come in,” with which Miss Oliphant always assured her young friend of a welcome, Maggie said from the other side of the locked door —

“I am very busy just now – I cannot see anyone.”

Priscilla felt a curious sense of being chilled; her whole afternoon had been one of elation, and Maggie’s words came as a kind of cold douche. She went back to her room, tried not to mind, and occupied herself looking over her beloved Greek until the dinner-gong sounded.

After dinner Priscilla again looked with anxious, loving eyes at Maggie. Maggie did not stop, as was her custom, to say a kind word or two as she passed. She was talking to another girl, and laughing gaily. Her dress was as picturesque as her face and figure were beautiful. But was Priscilla mistaken, or was her anxious observation too close? She felt sure as Miss Oliphant brushed past her that her eyelids were slightly reddened, as if she had been weeping.

Prissie put out a timid hand and touched Maggie on the arm. She turned abruptly.

“I forgot,” she said to her companion. “Please wait for me outside, Hester; I’ll join you in a moment, I have just a word to say to Miss Peel. What is it, Prissie?” said Maggie, then, when the other girl had walked out of hearing. “Why did you touch me?”

“Oh, for nothing much,” replied Prissie, half frightened at her manner, which was sweet enough, but had an intangible hardness about it, which Priscilla felt, but could not fathom. “I thought you’d be so glad about the decision Miss Heath and Miss Eccleston have come to.”

“No, I am not particularly glad. I can’t stay now to talk it over, however; Hester Stuart wants, me to practise a duet with her.”

“May I come to your room later on, Maggie?”

“Not to-night, I think; I shall be very busy.” Miss Oliphant nodded brightly, and disappeared out of the dining-hall.

Two girls were standing not far off. They had watched this little scene, and they now observed that Prissie clasped her hands, and that a woe-begone expression crossed her face.

“The spell is beginning to work,” whispered one to the other. “When the knight proves unfaithful the most gracious lady must suffer resentment.”

Priscilla did not hear these words. She went slowly upstairs and back to her own room, where she wrote letters home, and made copious notes from her last lectures, and tried not to think of the little cloud which seemed to have come between her and Maggie.

Late, on that same evening, Polly Singleton, who had just been entertaining a chosen bevy of friends in her own room, after the last had bidden her an affectionate “Good-night,” was startled at hearing a low knock at her door. She opened it at once. Miss Oliphant stood without.

“May I come in?” she asked.

“Why, of course. I’m delighted to see you. How kind of you to come. Where will you sit? I’m afraid you won’t find things very comfortable, for most of my furniture is gone. But there’s the bed; do you mind sitting on the bed?”

“If I want to sit at all the bed is as snug a place as any,” replied Maggie. “But I’m not going to stay a moment, for it is very late. See, I have brought you this back.”

Polly looked, and for the first time observed that her own sealskin jacket hung on Maggie’s arm.

“What do you mean?” she said. “My sealskin jacket! Oh, my beauty! But it isn’t mine, it’s yours now. Why do you worry me – showing it to me again?”

“I don’t want to worry you, Miss Singleton. I mean what I say. I have brought your jacket back.”

“But it is yours – you bought it.”

“I gave a nominal price for it, but that doesn’t make it mine. Anyhow, I have no use for it. Please take it back again.”

Poor Polly blushed very red all over her face.

“I wish I could,” she said. “If there has been anything I regretted in the auction, besides getting all you girls into a mess, it has been my sealskin jacket. Dad is almost certain to ask me about it, for he never made me such a handsome present before. Poor dad! he was so proud the night he brought it home. He said, ‘Look here, Poll, I paid a whole sheaf of fivers for this, and although it cost me a good round eighty guineas, I’m told it’s cheap at the price. Put it on, and let me see how you look in it,’ he said. And when I had it on he twisted me round, and chucked me under the chin, and said I was ‘a bouncer.’ Poor old dad! He was as proud as Punch of me in that jacket I never saw anything like it.”

“Well, he can be as proud as Punch of you again. Here is the jacket for your very own once more. Good-night.”

She walked to the door, but Miss Singleton ran after her.

“I can’t take it back,” she said. “I’m not as mean as all that comes to. It’s yours now; you got it as fair as possible.”

“Listen, Miss Singleton,” said Maggie. “If I keep that jacket I shall never wear it. I detest sealskin jackets. It won’t be the least scrap of use to me.”

“You detest sealskin jackets? How can you? Oh, the lovely things they are. Let me stroke the beauty down.”

“Stroke your beauty, and pet it as much as you like, only let me say ‘Good-night,’ now.”

“But, please, Miss Oliphant, please, I’d do anything in the world to get the jacket back, of course. But I’ve ten guineas of yours, and honestly, I can’t pay them back.”

“Allow me to lend them to you until next term. You can return me the money then, can you not?” Polly’s face became on the instant a show of shining eyes, gleaming white teeth, and glowing cheeks.

“Of course I could pay you back, you —darling,” she said with enthusiasm. “Oh, what a relief this is to me; I’d have done anything in all the world to have my jacket back again.”

“It’s a bargain, then. Good-night, Miss Singleton.”

Maggie tossed the jacket on Polly’s bed, touched her hand lightly with one of her own, and left the room. She went quickly back to her own pretty sitting-room, locked her door, threw herself on her knees by her bureau, and sobbed long and passionately.

During the few days which now remained before the end of the term no one quite knew what was wrong with Miss Oliphant. She worked hard in preparation for her lectures, and when seen in public was always very merry. But there was a certain hardness about her mirth which her best friends detected, and which caused Nancy Banister a good deal of puzzled pain.

Priscilla was treated very kindly by Maggie; she still helped her willingly with her Greek, and even invited her into her room once or twice. But all the little half-beginnings of confidence which, now and then, used to burst from Maggie’s lips, the allusions to old times, the sentences which revealed deep thoughts and high aspirations, all these, which made the essence of true friendship, vanished out of her conversation.

Priscilla said to herself over and over that there was really no difference – that Miss Oliphant was still as kind to her, as valued a friend as ever – but in her heart she knew that this was not the case.

Maggie startled all her friends by making one request. Might they postpone the acting of The Princess until the middle of the following term?

“I cannot do it justice now,” she said. “I cannot throw my heart and soul into my part. If you act the play now you must allow me to withdraw.”

The other girls, Constance Field in particular, were astonished. They even felt resentful. All arrangements had been made for this especial play. Maggie was to be the Princess herself; no one could possibly take her place. It was most unreasonable of her to withdraw now.

But it was one of the facts well-known at St. Benet’s that, fascinating as Miss Oliphant was, she was also unreasonable. On certain occasions she could even be disobliging. In short, when Maggie “took the bit between her teeth,” to employ an old metaphor, she could neither be led nor driven. After a great deal of heated discussion and indignant words, she had her will. The play was deferred till the following term, and one or two slight comedies, which had been acted before, were revived in a hurry to take its place.

Chapter Twenty Two
A Black Satin Jacket

Very active preparations were being made in a certain rather humble little cottage in the country for the heroine’s return. Three small girls were making themselves busy with holly and ivy, with badly-cut paper flowers, with enormous texts coarsely illustrated, to render the home gay and festive in its greeting. A little worn old woman lay on a sofa, and superintended these active measures.

“How soon will she be here now?” said Hattie the vigorous.

“Do stay still, Hattie, and don’t fidget. Don’t you see how tired Aunt Raby looks?” exclaimed Rose. “Prissie can’t be here yet, and you are such a worry when you jump up and down like that, Hattie.”

Rose’s words were quite severe, and Hattie planted herself on the edge of a chair, folded her plump hands, managed to get a demure look into her laughing eyes and dimpled mouth, and sat motionless for about half a minute. At the end of that time she tumbled on the floor with a loud crash, and Aunt Raby sprang to her feet with some alarm.

“Good gracious, child! are you hurt? What’s the matter?”

Hattie was sitting on the floor in convulsions of mirth.

“I’m not hurt,” she exclaimed. “I slipped off the chair. I didn’t mean to; I couldn’t help it, really. I’m sorry I woke you, Aunt Raby.”

“I wasn’t asleep, child.” Miss Peel walked across the room, and vanished into the kitchen, from which very savoury smells issued.

Hattie and Rose began to quarrel and argue, and Katie, who was more or less of a little peacemaker, suggested that they should draw up the blind, and all three get into the window to watch for Prissie.

“I wonder how she will look?” said Rose, when they were all comfortably established.

“I hope she won’t talk in Latin,” exclaimed Hattie.

“Oh, it is nice to think of seeing Prissie so soon,” murmured Katie in an ecstasy.

“I wonder,” began Rose in her practical voice, “how soon Prissie will begin to earn money. We want money even more than when she went away. Aunt Raby isn’t as well as she was then, and since the cows were sold – ”

“Hush!” said Hattie. “You know we promised we wouldn’t tell Prissie about the cows.”

Just then a distant sound of wheels was heard. The little girls began to jump and shout; a moment later and Priscilla stood in the midst of her family. A great excitement followed her arrival. There were kisses and hugs, and wild, rapturous words from the affectionate little sisters. Aunt Raby put her arms round Priscilla, and gave her a solemn sort of kiss, and then the whole party adjourned into the supper-room.

The feast which was spread was so dainty and abundant that Katie asked in a puzzled sort of way if Aunt Raby considered Prissie like the Prodigal Son.

“What fancies you have, child!” said Aunt Raby. “The Prodigal Son, indeed! Thank Heaven, I’ve never had to do with that sort! As to Priscilla here, she’s as steady as Old Time. Well, child, and are you getting up your learning very fast?”

“Pretty well, Aunt Raby.”

“And you like your grand college, and all those fine young-lady friends of yours?”

“I haven’t any fine young-lady friends.”

“H’m! I daresay they are like other girls; a little bit of learning, and a great deal of dress, eh?” Priscilla coloured.

“There are all sorts of girls at St. Benet’s,” she said after a pause. “Some are real students, earnest, devoted to their work.”

“Have you earned any money yet, Prissie?” exclaimed Hattie. “For if you have, I do want – look – ” She thrust a small foot, encased in a broken shoe, prominently into view.

“Hattie, go to bed this minute!” exclaimed Aunt Raby. “Go up to your room all three of you little girls. No more words – off at once, all of you. Prissie, you and I will go into the drawing-room, and I’ll lie on the sofa, while you tell me a little bit about your college life.”

“Aunt Raby always lies oh the sofa in the evenings now,” burst from Hattie the irrepressible.

Miss Peel rushed after the plump little girl, and pushed her out of the room.

“To bed, all of you!” she exclaimed. “To bed, and to sleep! Now, Prissie, you are not to mind a word that child says. Come into the drawing-room, and let us have a few words quietly. Oh, yes, I’ll lie on the sofa, my dear, if you wish it. But Hattie is wrong; I don’t do it every night. I suffer no pain either, Prissie. Many a woman of my age is racked with rheumatics.”

The last words were said with a little gasp. The elder woman lay back on the sofa, with a sigh of relief. She turned her face so that the light from the lamp should not reveal the deathly tired lines round it.

Aunt Raby was dressed in a rough homespun garment. Her feet were clad in unbleached cotton stockings, also made at home; her little, iron-grey curls lay flat at each side of her hollow cheeks. She wore list slippers, very coarse and common in texture. Her whole appearance was the essence of the homely, the old-fashioned, even the ungainly.

Priscilla had seen elegance and beauty since she went away; she had entered into the life of the cultivated, the intellectually great. In spite of her deep affection for Aunt Raby, she came back to the ugliness and the sordid surroundings of home with a pang which she hated herself for feeling. She forgot Aunt Raby’s sufferings for a moment in her uncouthness. She longed to shower riches, refinement, beauty upon her.

“How has your dress worn, Prissie?” said the elder woman, after a pause. “My sakes, child, you have got your best brown cashmere on! A beautiful fine bit of cashmere it was, too. I bought it out of the money I got for the lambs’ wool.”

Aunt Raby stretched out her hand, and, taking up a fold of the cashmere, she rubbed it softly between her finger and thumb.

“It’s as fine as velvet,” she said, “and I put strong work into it, too. It isn’t a bit worn, is it, Prissie?”

“No, Aunt Raby, except just round the tail. I got it very wet one day, and the colour went a trifle; but nothing to signify.”

A vivid picture rose up before Priscilla’s eyes as she spoke of Mrs Elliot-Smith’s drawing-room, and the dainty, disdainful ladies in their gay attire, and her own poor, little, forlorn figure in her muddy cashmere dress – the same dress Aunt Raby considered soft and beautiful as velvet.

“Oh, Aunt Raby,” she said with sudden impulse, “a great many things have happened to me since I went away. On the whole I have had a very good time.”

Aunt Raby opened her mouth to emit a prodigious yawn.

“I don’t know how it is,” she said, “but I’m a bit drowsy to-night. I suppose it’s the weather. The day was quite a muggy one. I’ll hear your news another time, Priscilla; but don’t you be turned with the vanities of the world, Priscilla. Life’s but a passing day: you mind that when you’re young, and it won’t come on you as a shock when you are old. I’m glad the cashmere has worn well – ay, that I am, Prissie. But don’t put it on in the morning, my love, for it’s a sin to wear through beautiful fine stuff like that. And, even if the colour is gone a bit round the hem, the stuff itself isn’t worn, and looks don’t signify. You’ll have to make up your mind to wear the cashmere for best again next term, Prissie, for, though I’m not pinched in any way, I’m not overflush either, my love.”

Priscilla, who had been sitting in a low chair near her aunt, now rose to her feet.

“Ought we not to come to bed?” she said. “If you don’t feel tired, you look it, Aunt Raby. Come upstairs, do, and let me help you to take your things off, and put you into bed. Come, Aunt Raby, it will be like old times to help you, you know.”

The girl knelt by the old woman, took one of her withered hands, raised it suddenly to her lips, and kissed it. Aunt Raby’s face was still turned from the light.

“Don’t you keep kneeling on your cashmere,” she said. “You’ll crease it awfully, and I don’t see my way to another best dress this term.”

“You needn’t, Aunt Raby,” said Priscilla, in a steady voice. “The cashmere is quite neat still. I can manage well with it.”

Aunt Raby rose slowly and feebly from the sofa.

“You may help me to get into bed if you like,” she said. “The muggy day has made me wonderfully drowsy, and I’ll be glad to lie down. It’s only that: I’ll be as pert as a cricket in the morning.”

The old woman leant on the girl’s strong, young arm, and stumbled a bit as she went up the narrow stairs.

When they entered the tiny bedroom Aunt Raby spoke again —

“Your dress will do, but I have been fretting about your winter jacket, Prissie. There’s my best one, though – you know, the quilted satin which my mother left me; its loose and full, and you shall have it.”

“But you want it to go to church in yourself, Aunt Raby.”

“I don’t often go to church lately, child. I take a power of comfort lying on the sofa, reading my Bible, and Mr Hayes doesn’t see anything contrary to Scripture in it, for I asked him. Yes, you shall have my quilted satin jacket to take back to college with you, Prissie, and then you’ll be set up fine.”

Priscilla bent forward and kissed Aunt Raby. She made no other response, but that night before she went to sleep she saw distinctly a vision of herself. Prissie was as little vain as a girl could be, but the vision of her own figure in Aunt Raby’s black satin quilted jacket was not a particularly inspiriting one. That jacket, full in the skirts, long in the shoulders, wide in the sleeves, and enormous round the neck, would scarcely bear comparison with the neat, tight-fitting garments which the other girl graduates of St. Benet’s were wont to patronise. Prissie felt glad she was not attired in it that unfortunate day when she sat in Mrs Elliot-Smith’s drawing-room; and yet – and yet – she knew that the poor, quaint, old-world jacket meant love and self-renunciation.

“Dear Aunt Raby!” whispered the girl.

Tears lay heavily on her eyelashes as she dropped asleep, with one arm thrown protectingly round her little sister Katie.