n enough!"--and he shook
hands rather coldly; not to be won over too soon.

"I am not supposed to be at home to people at present," said Leo,
simply. "They think I ought not,--but I was sorry when I heard it was
you the other day."

"Were you in the house?"--demanded he.

"Oh, yes; in the old schoolroom. I have my tea there when we are not by
ourselves. I--I don't dislike it." But her face told another tale. Val,
who had quite a brute instinct of sympathy, knew that she did dislike it
very much.

Tea was the only really pleasant meal at the Abbey; it was relieved of
the general's presence, and often of Sue's also--and during the last
month Leo had learnt to look forward to it.

A little quiver of the lips accompanied the above assertion, for of late
callers had been rather rife, and she had been banished so often that
she had come to dread the sound of the door-bell.

"I do think I needn't be classed as 'people';" pursued her old playmate,
but without the asperity of his former accents. "I've known you ever
since you were so high,"--indicating--"and--and I'm awfully sorry about
it all, you know."

It was only Val, Val whom nobody minded, but Leo, taken aback, flushed
to her brow.

"Oh, I say, ought I not to have said that? I'm such a rotter, I blurt
out with whatever comes first," stammered he, discomfited in his turn.
"Leo, you know I didn't mean it. There now, I suppose I oughtn't to call
you 'Leo'----" floundering afresh.

"Indeed you may, Val; and I know you meant nothing but what was kind;
only I--I am so unaccustomed to hearing--they never talk about me, and I
wish they would, oh, I _wish_ they would," her voice broke, but she
continued nevertheless: "Val, you don't know how hard it is--oh, what am
I saying?"--she stopped confused and panting, terrified at what she had
been led into.

"Look here," said Val, slowly, "you don't mind me, do you? You don't
need to care what you say before me?--_I_ shan't tell, of course I
shan't. They always used to be down upon you at home, and I suppose they
go on the same? Just you get it out to me, Leo," and he nodded
encouragingly.

By the end of half-an-hour, during which the two had wandered away from
the village street and the eyes of spectators, Leo had "got it out," and
if the truth were told, pretty thoroughly. Recollect how young, and
naturally frank, and in a sense absolutely friendless she was. And then
it was only Val--she felt almost as though she were s