eautiful alliteration, is it not? Helen, she would have
given you the nightmare."

"I am satisfied," and Helen nodded with a secret feeling of exultation
as she met Daisy's eyes.

"What conspiracy are you hatching now?" glancing from one to the other.

The sound of the dinner bell was sufficient excuse for not answering.
For once they had the innings.

The new scholar was at the next table to them. She was tall and looked,
as Roxy said afterwards, of a very uncertain age. Her hair was a rather
dull light brown, her eyes a sort of hazel with bluish lights, which
made them dull, and a complexion that would never be fair, with quite a
shadow under the eyes. The features were not bad, but something was
needed to give them life.

After the study period the two girls went upstairs with their arms
around each other.

"Let us run away to-morrow and have a walk and a splendid talk about
trees," said Daisy. "I was thinking all dinner time that I needed to be
introduced to them. I believe I am only acquainted with Mr. Evergreen
and Mr. Horse-chestnut. It bothers me to tell an elm tree from a maple
and a white-skinned beech from a white birch."

"Oh, dear! I've promised to devote the afternoon to scales. I've had a
little Latin hammered into me, but I am almost afraid that,
extravagantly as I love music I shall make small headway in the divine
art. And Madame Meran was good enough to offer me an extra lesson."

"Then we will take it some other Saturday."

"How delightful it is to be together!"

Then they kissed, girl fashion, for the first time, and uttered a tender
good-night.

Two rooms away Miss Craven was crying softly and wishing she had not
come here. It seemed an out of the way place, it was a small school, and
Mrs. Aldred's letter had been encouraging. There was all the fortune for
her alone. If it had come earlier, while some of the others were alive
to share it! She, too, longed for an education so that she might be more
able to enjoy it.

"Have you written to Mrs. Van Dorn?" asked Mrs. Aldred on Saturday
morning.

"I intend to this morning. And to my uncle."

Mrs. Aldred nodded approvingly.

Mrs. Van Dorn had said, "In a fortnight you may write me a letter. Then
once a month."

So it had been a fortnight. She found a good deal to say. She liked the
school very much and described her room-mate, her new studies, the
little she had seen of the town. And there was an enthusiastic gratitude
that satisfie