ons, stared with
unconcealed curiosity, while her innocence had a trick of developing
into quite remarkable shrewdness at sudden and inappropriate moments.
Miss Munns recalled several incidents when the gaze of the childlike
eyes had filled her with a most unpleasant embarrassment, and declared
that not for fifty thousand pounds would she have that child living in
her house!

Bridgie was different. She was invariably anxious to hear further
anecdotes concerning relations and friends, and was such a docile pupil
in domestic matters, that the old lady had the felicity of practically
ruling two households instead of one. In the fervour of her resolve to
turn over a new leaf, Bridgie had made no reservations, but had placed
herself and her accounts in Miss Munns's hands, and from that moment
there was no drawing back. The weekly orders were supervised and cut
down, the accounts carefully checked and paid to the hour, the receipts
were endorsed and filed, so that they could be produced at a moment's
notice; extras were faithfully entered into the housekeeping ledger at
the end of each day, and the whole account balanced to a laborious
penny. When the penny was very difficult to find, Bridgie pleaded hard
to be allowed to supply it from her private purse, and could never be
quite brought to see that the result would not be the same, but it was a
proud moment when Jack surveyed the ledger on Saturday evenings and
wrote, "Examined, and found correct!" with a big flourish underneath the
final addition. Then he would stroke his moustache and twinkle at her
with amused eyes, as he said--

"Bravo, Bridgie, right to a fraction! I'll ask Miss Munns to take me in
hand next--since she has scored such a triumph out of you. Evening
classes two or three times a week, with Sylvia to sit by me and sharpen
my pencils--that would be a happy way of combining instruction and
amusement for the winter evenings, wouldn't it?" and--shades of
Esmeralda!--Bridgie smiled, and ejaculated, "You naughty boy!" in a tone
as far removed from fault-finding as it is possible to imagine.

Sylvia Trevor, however, being a young woman of spirit, was by no means
disposed to provide amusement for Master Jack or any other masculine
flirt. If any man wished to win her, she was worth wooing seriously, so
she told herself with a tilt of the pretty dark head, but when Jack said
one thing with his lips, beseeching Miss Munns to take pity on his
ignorance, and