holding out a bright crown-piece on her palm.

"Father says General Digby would like me best to pay my debts. Will you
please give some to the others to pay for the things I took?"

"Thank you, Pam. I shall be very pleased to do so," said Mrs Trevor
quietly. Her heart ached at being obliged to take the child's fortune
from her, but she knew it was the right thing to do, and would not allow
herself to hesitate. "And now, darling, I shall be delighted to have
the palm. It is indeed the very thing I wanted."

Pam tried to smile, but her lips quivered. A whole crown-piece, and a
new one into the bargain! A Vanderbilt deprived of his millions could
not have felt his poverty more bitterly than she did at that moment!

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

THE CONCERT.

Next afternoon Betty left Jill engaged in filling up the blanks in her
Christmas letters, and Pam lovingly dressing up Pamela junior in her
various costumes, and, accompanied by her father and Miles, called for
Cynthia and set out to walk across the Park to the Albert Hall, where
Miss Beveridge and a friend had arranged to meet them in the box.

Cynthia looked delightfully graceful and pretty in a blue costume and
hat, which had already caused Betty many pangs of envy, and perhaps it
was a remembrance of his own youth which made Dr Trevor pass his hand
through Betty's arm and lead her ahead, so that his son should have the
pleasure of a talk with this very charming little lady. Miles was the
best of good fellows, all solid goodness and worth, but he was still in
the boorish stage, and it would do him good to be drawn out of himself,
and forced to play the gallant.

Miles himself was by no means sure that he approved of the arrangement.
He would have preferred to walk behind Cynthia, and admire her pretty
hair, her tiny feet, and the general air of daintiness which was to him
the greatest charm of all, but he had not the slightest idea what to
say, and thought of the long walk before him with something approaching
consternation. Fortunately for him Cynthia was not in the least shy,
and had so seldom an opportunity of talking to anyone of her own age,
that she could have chattered away the whole afternoon without the
slightest difficulty.

"It isn't often _you_ have a holiday, is it?" she said, smiling at him
in her bright, friendly manner. "Once when I was up very early I saw
you going out before six o'clock, and now if I'm awake I hear the door
slam--you do