travagant bout, and lunch in a restaurant, and go to an
entertainment--but I'm sorry afterwards when I count the cost. On
Sunday I go to church, and wish some one would ask me to tea. They
don't, you know. They may do once or twice, when you first come up, but
you can never ask them back, and your clothes get shabby, and you know
nothing about their interests, so they think you a bore, and quietly let
you drop."

A smothered exclamation burst from Claire's lips; with a sudden,
swirling movement she leapt up, and fell on her knees before Miss
Rhodes's chair, her hands clasping its arms, her flushed face upturned
with a desperate eagerness.

"Miss Rhodes! we are going to live together here, we are going to share
the same room, and the same meals. Would you--if any one offered you a
million pounds, would you agree to poison me slowly, day by day,
dropping little drops of poison into everything I ate and everything I
drank, while you sat by and watched me grow weaker and weaker till I
_died_?"

"Good heavens, girl--are you mad! What in the world are you raving
about?"

Miss Rhodes had grown quite red. She was indignant; she was also more
than a little scared. The girl's sudden change of mood was startling in
itself, and she looked so tense, so overwhelmingly in earnest. What
could she mean? Was it possible that she was a little--_touched_?

"I suppose you don't realise it, but it's insulting even to put such a
question."

"But you _are_ doing it! It's just exactly what you are beginning
already. Ever since I arrived you've been poisoning me drop by drop.
Poisoning my _mind_! I am at the beginning of my work, and you've been
discouraging me, frightening me, painting it all black. Every word that
you've said has been a drop of poison to kill hope and courage and
confidence--and oh, don't do it! don't go on! I may be young and
foolish, and full of ridiculous ideas, but let me keep them as long as I
can! If all that you say is true, they will be knocked out of me soon
enough, and I--I've never had to work before, or been alone, and--and
it's only two days since my mother left me to go to India--all that long
way--and left me behind! It's hard enough to go on being alone, and
believing it's all going to be _couleur de rose_, but it will be fifty
times harder if I don't. Please--please don't make it any worse!"

With the last words tears came with a rush, the tears that had been
resolutely restrained thr