ago, when Madam Chartley was Alicia Raeburn,
and I was a bashful little English schoolgirl at St. Agnes Hall. Alicia
had come from America to visit her uncle, who was proctor of the
cathedral. His grounds joined the school premises on the south, and I
often used to peep through the hedge and watch her strolling around the
garden. She was older than I, and the difference in our ages seemed
greater then than now, for I was still wearing short frocks, and she
had just put on long ones. I had heard that she was to be presented at
court next season. That, and the fact that she was an American, and very
beautiful, and that she looked lonely strolling around the old proctor's
garden by herself, threw a glamour of romance about her.

"I would have given a fortune to have made her acquaintance, and I spent
hours down by the brook dreaming innocent little day-dreams in which I
pictured such meetings. Suddenly heliotrope became my favourite flower
instead of roses, because she so often wore a bunch of it tucked in the
belt of her gray dress. Indeed, because she so often wore it, I grew to
regard it as sacred to her alone, and felt that no one else had a right
to wear it. Fortunately, at that season of the year it grew only in the
proctor's conservatory, so that the schoolgirls could not obtain it. I
would have inwardly resented it, if any one of them had taken such a
liberty as to wear her flower. She seemed to me the most beautiful and
perfect creature I had ever seen, and I worshipped her from afar, and
imitated her in every way possible. I don't suppose you can understand
such an infatuation."

"Indeed I do undahstand," interrupted Lloyd, eagerly. She was thinking
of Ida Shane, and the way she had fallen under the spell of her
charming personality. Even yet the odour of violets brought back the
same little thrill it had awakened when violets seemed made for Ida's
exclusive wearing. Miss Gilmer's feeling for the beautiful Alicia
Raeburn was no deeper than hers had been for Ida. She could readily
understand about the heliotrope.

"Well, then," Miss Gilmer went on, "you can imagine my state of mind
when at last I actually met her. It was on the queen's birthday. At our
school, instead of having the May-pole dance on May-day, we waited until
the queen's birthday, and on that occasion Alicia was one of the invited
guests. It was quite by accident she spoke to me. She dropped her
handkerchief, and I sprang to pick it up. But she mu