nded and advertised her return to the
prosaic world by closing the door loudly in less than ten minutes after
Mrs. MacDonald had gone.

She walked straight into her own room and bolted herself in. If Grandma
had seen her then, she could not have helped admitting that there was as
much of Robert MacDonald in the lines of the girl's face as of the
guileful Barbara Ballantree.

II

No notice was taken of Barrie until half-past eight o'clock that
night--half-past eight being considered night in Mrs. MacDonald's
house-hold. At that time, just as the hour was announced by an old
friend, the grandfather clock on the landing, who had seen the girl go
into the garret, Miss Janet Hepburn knocked at Barrie's door.

"Barribel," she called, as always pronouncing the fanciful name with a
certain reluctance, partly on principle, partly because it was known to
have been chosen by "that woman." "Barribel, by your grandmother's
permission, I've brought you some supper. Open your door and take in the
tray."

A voice answered from behind the panel, "I'll open the door if you will
bring in the tray yourself."

Miss Hepburn hesitated for a moment. In the dun gaslight of the corridor
her sharp profile looked eager as the face of a hungry bird. She thought
quickly. Mrs. MacDonald had not yet finished her own supper. No such
frivolity as evening dinner was known at Hillard House. Soup after dark
except for an invalid would have been considered a pitfall; but the old
lady liked to linger alone over the last meal of the day, reading a
religious volume by the light of a lamp placed on the table at the left
of her plate. When Miss Hepburn and Barrie finished they always, as a
matter of form, asked to be excused, though they both knew, and Mrs.
MacDonald knew that they knew, how more than willing she was to be left
alone with her book. At a quarter past nine the servants were called,
they having already supped on bread and cheese. A chapter, preferably
from the Old Testament, was read, a prayer offered up, and at
nine-thirty precisely the family was ready to go to bed. Miss Hepburn
had reason to believe that for three quarters of an hour she was free to
do as she wished, and she wished as ardently as she was able to wish
anything, to see Barrie. She had heard next to nothing of the day's
events from Mrs. MacDonald, whose companion she was supposed to be now
that the girl no longer needed her whole morning's services as
governess. And