to direct them, and--hey, presto--they walk in my paths, not
their own. Now I have made up my mind on one point. I have not the
faintest idea how it is to be managed; but managed it shall be. Susan
Drummond and her father are not to desecrate the Towers with their
commonplaceness, their shallowness, and vulgarity. The Lorrimers are
still to live here; and Nell's heart is not to be broken. For the sake
of the ugly duckling I do this. How, I know not; but I turn all the
power that is in me in that one direction from this hour forward.

"Poor, ugly duckling with the pathetic eyes. I do believe Antonia loves
you."

CHAPTER XXIII.

TRUTH AND FIDELITY.

Hester and her party returned to the Grange in time for lunch. All the
way back Antonia was silent. They drove home by another road; they
passed a bog of extreme desolation, and some larger and wilder briars
than ever; they skirted a melancholy common, but Antonia never made an
observation; her whole gaze was turned inward; she was looking so
intently at the picture of a sorrowful child, that she was blind to
everything else. Susy was decidedly in a bad temper; Hester's brave
heart was full of aches, doubts, and fears; and Annie was again going
back to that unsolved problem of how she was to get back the ring for
Mrs. Willis.

The return party was, therefore, a dull one; although no one noticed the
other's dulness, each being so occupied with her own thoughts.

Mrs. Willis was to leave the Grange immediately after lunch, and Hester
and Annie were to accompany her to Nortonbury in the landau.

Just as the carriage drove up to the house, Mrs. Willis remembered the
ring and spoke to Annie.

"My dear," she said with a smile, "I am leaving the house without my
ring. It is too late now to send it to Paris to be copied; but as I see
you never wear it, I may as well take it back with me to Lavender House.
You know, my love, how much I value that ring. I feel quite lonely
without it."

Annie's pretty face turned pink.

"But I should like to wear it before I go back to school," she said,
"and you promised that I might have it during the holidays."

"So I did; well, I will say nothing more. Be sure you take good care of
it and give it back to me on the day of your return to Lavender House."

Annie promised with a light heart. The holidays were to last for another
week, and what might not happen in a week? She laughed quite gaily, and
springing lightly into the carr