of the drive, and
spun rapidly along the highway. The necessity for keeping up a part was
over, and involuntarily she began softly whistling beneath her breath,
for in truth she was by no means so miserable as she had striven to
appear.

Novelty was the breath of Dreda's nostrils. Any novelty to her was
better than none, and if the chance of returning to the house had at
that moment been vouchsafed, it is doubtful if she would have accepted
it at the cost of missing the excitements of the next few hours.

The car spun along strongly, so that the twenty miles' distance was
speedily covered, and before Etheldreda was half-way through her dreams
it had turned in at a gate, and there before her eyes lay Grey House, a
square, pretentious-looking building, with a door in the middle and a
stretch of three windows on either side. There, also--oh! thrilling and
exciting moment--pressed against the panes of an upper window were a
number of round white discs, which must obviously be the faces of pupils
watching the advent of the new girl!

Dreda sat up, and throwing back her golden mane, tossed a laughing
remark to her mother--the first she had volunteered since leaving home,
and showed her white teeth in a determined smile. If she were fated to
arrive at all, she would arrive as a conqueror who would be regarded
with envy and admiration. Privately, she might consider herself a
martyr, but that was not a role in which she chose to appear before
other people. She was smiling as she entered the drawing-room after her
mother, smiling as Miss Bretherton came forward to greet them, smiling
still, a forced, fixed smile, as she listened to the conversation
between the two ladies.

"Hope we shall be very happy together--"

("I shan't. I don't like you a bit! Scraggy, cross-looking thing!
Your nose looks as if it would cut!")

"...Dreda is fond of society. She will enjoy working with other girls!"

("Shan't, then! I shall hate it. I should have enjoyed it in Paris.")

"...Beginnings always are a little difficult; but young people _soon_
adapt themselves!"

("It's easy to talk!")

After a few minutes passed in the exchange of these and similar
commonplaces, Mrs Saxon rose to depart. On a previous visit she had
been shown over the house, and had seen the room where her daughter was
to sleep, and now her presence would only prolong the agony. She cast a
look at her daughter, full of yearning mother love and sympathy;