er. When Maud had done with her mother she
turned to Marjory.

"Now, _don't_ look at me like that," she said plaintively; "you're going
to like me in the end; I'm going to make you. I know just exactly what
you're thinking--that I'm a horrid, stuck-up, thoroughly spoilt and
disagreeable girl. So I am; but I'm all right when you know me, though
you've got to know me first, as the song says. True, I don't like
dogs--nasty lumbering things that spoil one's best clothes; but that's
not a crime--it's an opinion. I always have my own way, everybody gives
in to me, and so long as I can 'boss the show,' as our American cousins
say, I can be quite charming. Now you look as if you liked bossing shows
yourself, Miss Marjory--people with long noses always do; so one of us
will have to give in. I wonder which it will be. But I must have you
like me; I am perfectly miserable if people aren't fond of me." And she
looked at Marjory with a comic yet pathetic appeal in her eyes.

"Dear Maudie has such quaint little sayings," said her mother. "I don't
know how she can remember them all."

"Well, which is it to be?" demanded Maud, dramatically striking an
attitude. "Is it peace or war?"

"Oh, peace, I suppose," replied Marjory, laughing; and then as an
afterthought--"for the present."

This girl with her airs and graces and her comical ways was something
quite new to Marjory, and she stood contemplating this wonderful and
puzzling creature, when the creature suddenly seized her round the
waist, waltzing out of the room with her, and calling Blanche to come
too.

"Darling Maud has such wonderfully high spirits," murmured Mrs. Hilary
to the empty air. She had probably forgotten that there was no one left
in the room.

CHAPTER XV.

TWELFTH NIGHT.

"And hopes, perfumed and bright,
So lately shining wet with dew and tears,
Trembling in the morning light--
I saw them change to dark and anxious fears
Before the night!"--ADELAIDE PROCTER.

Blanche had told her cousin something of Marjory's history, and Maud was
prepared to be much interested in her, for her life had been so unusual,
so different from that of ordinary girls.

"I've never met anybody just like you," she said to Marjory as they
walked across the park, "and I want to know all about you and your
belongings, and above all, I ache to find out what is in that forbidden
room, and why you mustn't go into it."

This was a sore subject with Marjory.