with half-suppressed eagerness to unlimited gossip about stage-land, and
even sank to the regular perusal of certain bold theatrical papers. She
was unmistakably becoming contaminated.

Meanwhile Miss Joe Hill, quite blind to the situation, condoned the
friendship. "You are developing your own character," she told Miss
Lucinda. "You are exercising self-control and forbearance in dealing
with that crude, undisciplined girl. Florence is the natural outcome of
common stock and newly acquired riches. It is your noble aspiration to
take this vulgar clay and mold it into something higher. Your motive is
laudable, Lucinda; your self-sacrifice in giving up our evening hour
together is heroic. I read you like an open book, dear."

And Miss Lucinda listened and trembled. They were standing together
before the window of their rigid little sitting room, the chastened
severity of which banished all ideas of comfort. "What purpose do you
serve?" Miss Joe Hill demanded of every article that went into her
apartment, and many of the comforts of life failed to pass the
examination.

After Miss Joe Hill had gone out, Miss Lucinda remained at the window
and restlessly tapped her knuckles against the sill. The insidious
spring sunshine, the laughter of the girls in the court below, the
foolish happy birds telling their secrets under the new, green leaves,
all worked together to disturb her peace of mind.

She resolutely turned her back to the window and took breathing
exercises. That was one of Miss Joe Hill's sternest
requirements--fifteen minutes three times a day and two pints of water
between meals. Then she sat down in a straight-back chair and tried to
read "The Power Through Poise." Her body was doing its duty, but it did
not deceive her mind. She knew that she was living a life of black
deception; evidences of her guilt were on every hand. Behind the books
on her little shelf was a paper of chocolate creams; in the music rack,
back to back with Grieg and Brahms, was an impertinent sheet of ragtime
which Floss had persuaded her to learn as an accompaniment. And deeper
and darker and falser than all was a plan which had been fermenting in
her mind for days.

In a fortnight the school term would be over. Following the usual
custom, Miss Lucinda was to go to her brother in the country and Miss
Joe Hill to her sister for a week. This obligation to their respective
families being discharged, they would repair to the seclusion of a
C