my tears were all brushed away when she said:

"I knew somebody who lived in your house once, and I'll tell her all
about you."

She stayed a few moments longer, and when going off she whispered:

"Hope you don't feel badly about my laughing in the garden to-day. I
didn't mean a thing. But if any of the girls laugh again just say you're
Alma Lier's friend and she's going to take care of you."

I could hardly believe my ears. Some great new splendour had suddenly
dawned upon me and I was very happy.

I did not know then that the house which Alma had been talking of was
not my father's house, but Castle Raa. I did not know then that the
person who had lived there was her mother, and that in her comely and
reckless youth she had been something to the bad Lord Raa who had lashed
my father and sworn at my grandmother.

I did not know anything that was dead and buried in the past, or
shrouded and veiled in the future. I only knew that Alma had called
herself my friend and promised to take care of me. So with a glad heart
I went to sleep.

FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

Alma kept her word, though perhaps her method of protection was such as
would have commended itself only to the heart of a child.

It consisted in calling me Margaret Mary after our patron saint of the
Sacred Heart, in taking me round the garden during recreation as if I
had been a pet poodle, and, above all, in making my bed the scene of the
conversaziones which some of the girls held at night when they were
supposed to be asleep.

The secrecy of these gatherings flattered me, and when the unclouded
moon, in the depths of the deep blue Italian sky, looked in on my group
of girls in their nightdresses, bunched together on my bed, with my own
little body between, I had a feeling of dignity as well as solemnity and
awe.

Of course Alma was the chief spokeswoman at these whispered
conferences. Sometimes she told us of her drives into the Borghese
Gardens, where she saw the King and Queen, or to the Hunt on the
Campagna, where she met the flower of the aristocracy, or to the Pincio,
where the Municipal band played in the pavilion, while ladies sat in
their carriages in the sunshine, and officers in blue cloaks saluted
them and smiled.

Sometimes she indicated her intentions for the future, which was
certainly not to be devoted to retreats and novenas, or to witness
another black dress as long as she lived, and if she married (which was
uncertain) it w