worked so well in my service, that when bedtime came Jill found herself
the possessor of quite a snug room. There were curtains up at the window,
and strips of carpet on the floor. A dressing-table had been improvised
out of a deal packing-case, and covered with clean dimity. Jill's
travelling-box stood in one corner, and on the wall there was a row of
neat pegs for Jill's dresses. Jill exclaimed at the clean trim look of
the room, but I am sure she regretted her bed on the floor. She came down
presently in her scarlet dressing-gown to give me a final hug and
reiterate her petition for work.

'Mamma has talked a lot of rubbish about my keeping up my studies and
practising two hours a day, and she means to disinfect my books and send
them down, but I have made up my mind that I will not open one. I am
going to enjoy myself, and nurse sick people, and do real work, instead
of grinding away at that stupid German.' And Jill set her little white
teeth, and looked determined, so I thought it best not to contradict
her.

'I am so glad Uncle Max thought of Miss Gillespie, dear.'

'Who is she? I hate her already. I expect she is only an Anglicised
Fraeulein,' observed Jill, with a vixenish look.

'You are quite wrong. Miss Gillespie is Scotch, and she is very nice and
good, and pretty too, for I have often heard Uncle Max talk of her. Her
father was Max's great friend, and at his death the daughters were
obliged to go out in the world. Miss Gillespie is the eldest. No, she is
not very young,--nearly forty, I believe,--but she is so nice-looking;
she was engaged to a clergyman, but he died, and they had been engaged
so many years, and so now she will not marry. She is very cheerful,
however, and all her pupils love her, and I am sure you will be happy
with her, Jill.'

Jill would not quite allow this, but the next day she recurred to the
subject, and asked me a good many questions about Miss Gillespie, and
when I told her that it was settled that Miss Gillespie should join them
at Hastings she really looked quite pleased; but nothing would induce her
to open the case of books Aunt Philippa had sent down, and when I told
Uncle Max he only laughed.

'Let her be as idle as she likes. She is over-educated now, and knows far
more than most girls of her age. Take her about with you, and make her
useful.' And I followed this advice implicitly, but for a different
reason,--there was no keeping Mr. Tudor out of the house; so when I