ould_ be best?
Oh, I could say that by accident her granddaughter had met a guest of
mine, a friend of Mrs. Ballantree MacDonald's; that she wasn't to worry,
because, though her granddaughter refused to return, we would see that
the child reached her mother safely, by to-morrow night if possible. I
can mention Basil, and say we are the writers. If she has heard of us,
that may relieve the poor lady's mind."

"Grandma hasn't heard of you, I'm sure," said Barrie, "unless you write
religious books; but she won't _need_ her mind relieved. While I was
with her, I think she considered it her duty to take strict care of me;
but now I've gone my own way, she'll see it was predestined. It was just
the same with a Dresden china teapot she inherited. She didn't approve
of it because it was too gay, but she always washed it herself because
it was her father's. When it broke in spite of her, she wouldn't have it
mended, and told Heppie to throw the pieces away."

"Nevertheless, I must write, and send the letter to Hillard House by
hand," Aline insisted. "If I didn't do that I should not be able to
sleep." She spoke with fervour, for she felt that she must have two
strings to her bow. If "Mother" failed, she must be able to fall back on
"Grandma."

VII

Barrie meant to be up and dressed before any one else in the house, but
she lay awake until long after midnight, an unprecedented thing for her,
and in consequence slept late, making up her accustomed nine hours.

Usually she fell asleep at ten or soon after, and jumped briskly out of
bed at seven, waked only by her eager desire for renewed life, in a
perfectly new day which no one else had ever seen yet. This morning it
was a repeated knocking at the door which mingled with her dreams and
shook her out of them. What door could it be? Where was she? the girl
wondered for a dazed instant. Then Moore appeared with a breakfast-tray.

"Mrs. West said not to wake you for early tea," she explained with a
glacial coldness worthy of Hillard House. "Madam and the two gentlemen
are having breakfast out of doors in the summer-house; and when you get
up, miss, I advise you to draw your curtains well across the windows or
you may be seen."

Barrie wished that she too were having breakfast in the summer-house,
and thought it mistaken kindness on the part of Mrs. West not to have
her called. But, from Aline's point of view, there was no mistake. "I
have let the child sleep," she expl