tion of the house, but fear dogged her
footsteps. What did Penelope know, and what did she not know?

Meanwhile Miss Tredgold took the little girl's hand and began to pace up
and down.

"I have a great deal to correct in you, Pen," she said. "You are always
spying and prying. That is not a nice character for a child."

"I can be useful if I spy and pry," said Penelope.

"My dear, unless you wish to become a female detective, you will be a
much greater nuisance than anything else if you go on making mysteries
about nothing. I saw that you were tormenting dear little Pauline just
now. The child is very nervous. If she is not stronger soon I shall take
her to the seaside. She certainly needs a change."

"And me, too?" said Penelope. "I want change awful bad."

"Not a bit of you. I never saw a more ruddy, healthy-looking little girl
in the whole course of my life."

"I wonder what I could do to be paled down," thought Penelope to herself;
but she did not speak her thought aloud. "I mustn't tell Aunt Sophy, that
is plain. I must keep all I know about Paulie dark for the present.
There's an awful lot. There's about the thimble, and--yes, I did see them
all three. I'm glad I saw them. I won't tell now, for I'd only be
punished; but if I don't tell, and pretend I'm going to, Paulie will have
to pay me to keep silent. That will be fun."

The days passed, and Pauline continued to look pale, and Miss Tredgold
became almost unreasonably anxious about her. Notwithstanding Verena's
assurance that Pauline had the sort of complexion that often looked white
in summer, the good lady was not reassured. There was something more than
ordinary weakness and pallor about the child. There was an expression in
her eyes which kept her kind aunt awake at night.

Now this most excellent woman had never yet allowed the grass to grow
under her feet. She was quick and decisive in all her movements. She was
the sort of person who on the field of battle would have gone straight to
the front. In the hour of danger she had never been known to lose her
head. She therefore lost no time in making arrangements to take Verena
and Pauline to the seaside. Accordingly she wrote to a landlady she
happened to know, and engaged some remarkably nice rooms at Easterhaze on
the south coast. Verena and Pauline were told of her plans exactly a week
after the birthday. Pauline had been having bad dreams; she had been
haunted by many things. The look of relief on