dy dressed
for their walk. Industrious Maria had her book. Idle Zo, perched on a
high chair, sat kicking her legs. "If you say a word," she whispered, as
Carmina passed her, "you'll be called an Imp, and stuck up on a chair. I
shall go to the boy."

"Are you better, Frances?"

"Much better, my dear."

Her face denied it; the look of suffering was there still. She tore up
the letter which she had been writing, and threw the fragments into the
waste-paper basket.

"That's the second letter you've torn up," Zo remarked.

"Say a word more--and you shall have bread and water for tea!" Miss
Minerva was not free from irritation, although she might be free from
pain. Even Zo noticed how angry the governess was.

"I wish you could drive with me in the carriage," said Carmina. "The air
would do you so much good."

"Impossible! But you may soothe my irritable nerves in another way, if
you like."

"How?"

"Relieve me of these girls. Take them out with you. Do you mind?"

Zo instantly jumped off her chair; and even Maria looked up from her
book.

"I will take them with pleasure. Must we ask my aunt's permission?"

"We will dispense with your aunt's permission. She is shut up in her
study--and we are all forbidden to disturb her. I will take it on
myself." She turned to the girls with another outbreak of irritability.
"Be off!"

Maria rose with dignity, and made one of her successful exits. "I am
sorry, dear Miss Minerva, if _I_ have done anything to make you angry."
She pointed the emphasis on "I," by a side-look at her sister. Zo
bounced out of the room, and performed the Italian boy's dance on
the landing. "For shame!" said Maria. Zo burst into singing. _"Yah
yah-yah-bellah-vitah-yah!_ Jolly! jolly! jolly!--we are going out for a
drive!"

Carmina waited, to say a friendly word, before she followed the girls.

"You didn't think me neglectful, Frances, when I let you go upstairs by
yourself!" Miss Minerva answered sadly and kindly. "The best thing you
could do was to leave me by myself."

Carmina's mind was still not quite at ease. "Yes--but you were in pain,"
she said.

"You curious child! I am not in pain now."

"Will you make me comfortable, Frances? Give me a kiss."

"Two, my dear--if you like."

She kissed Carmina on one cheek and on the other. "Now leave me to
write," she said.

Carmina left her.

The drive ought to have been a pleasant one, with Zo in the carriage.
To Marceline, it was a time o