really was food for imagination to work on, and perhaps the
clue to much that was perplexing in Harry. How curiously it had come
out!

The artless Kate smiled re-assuringly at her victim. She was on the track
now, and the rabbit might have as much chance of ultimately evading the
weasel hunting him by scent.

"What perverse fate has brought me here?" sighed Bluebell, laying her
tormented head on the pillow that night. "Miss Barrington will be sure to
find out everything. She was so friendly at first; but Harry always said
he never trusted her. Then those children! I am sure they are more
capable of teaching me. Whenever shall I be extricated from this false
position?"

A night's rest did not allay Bluebell's perplexities; on the contrary,
more and more complications suggested themselves. Harry must know where
she was by this time, and would be frantic at her having dropped into
such an ants'-nest. They would recognise his handwriting, too, if a
letter came. To be sure that would also strike him. Nevertheless she got
into the habit of calling for her letters at the post-office,--a
proceeding which the children did not fail to mention, with the rider,
"That they wondered at Miss Leigh taking the trouble when she never got
any."

Kate was rather inclined to patronize Bluebell. She persuaded her mother
to give a musical party for the exhibition of her wonderful voice, and
was, on that occasion, quite as solicitous about the young artiste's
toilette as her own; and, being not averse to having a girl of her own
age to chatter to, bestowed a good deal of her society on Bluebell out of
school-hours, which might have been more appreciated were it not for the
excessive caution it entailed on the latter.

One day she heard that Mrs. and Miss Barrington were going to Bromley
Towers for some theatricals and other gaieties. After her discovery of
whose house she was in, that was only a matter of course, and she had
only to conceal all interest in it.

Kate was to take a part in one of the plays, and passed the intervening
time in getting it by heart, and rehearsing with Bluebell, while the
necessary costume was animatedly discussed between them. The latter
fancied she had attained sufficient self-command to listen unconcernedly
to any conversation about Lord Bromley or "The Towers," but she could
not quench the beaming delight in her eyes when Kate one day observed,
carelessly,--

"I believe you will see the play, after all