to make friends with those above
you----"

"Who are those above her, I should like to know?" broke in the
grey-haired surgeon with some heat. "My Janet's as good as the best of
them any day. The Adairs are not such grand people as Miss Polehampton
makes out--I never heard of such insulting distinctions!"

"Fancy Janetta being sent away--regularly expelled!" muttered Joey, with
another chuckle.

"You are very unkind to talk in that way!" said Janetta, addressing him,
because at that moment she could not bear to look at Mr. Colwyn. "It was
not _that_ that made Miss Polehampton angry. It was what she called
insubordination. Miss Adair did not like to see me having meals at a
side-table--though I didn't mind one single bit!--and she left her own
place and sat by me--and then Miss Polehampton was vexed--and everything
followed naturally. It was not just my being friends with Miss Adair
that made her send me away."

"It seems to me," said Mr. Colwyn, "that Miss Adair was very
inconsiderate."

"It was all her love and friendship, father," pleaded Janetta. "And she
had always had her own way; and of course she did not think that Miss
Polehampton really meant----"

Her weak little excuses were cut short by a scornful laugh from her
stepmother.

"It's easy to see that you have been made a cat's-paw of, Janetta," she
said. "Miss Adair was tired of school, and took the opportunity of
making a to-do about you, so as to provoke the schoolmistress and get
sent away. It does not matter to her, of course: _she_ hasn't got her
living to earn. And if you lose your teaching, and Miss Polehampton's
recommendations by it, it doesn't affect her. Oh, I understand these
fine ladies and their ways."

"Indeed," said Janetta, in distress, "you quite misunderstand Miss
Adair, mamma. Besides, it has not deprived me of my teaching: Miss
Polehampton had told me that I might go to her sister's school at
Worthing if I liked; and she only let me go yesterday because she became
irritated at--at--some of the things that were said----"

"Yes, but I shall not let you go to Worthing," said Mr. Colwyn, with
sudden decisiveness. "You shall not be exposed to insolence of this kind
any longer. Miss Polehampton had no right to treat you as she did, and I
shall write and tell her so."

"And if Janetta stays at home," said his wife complainingly, "what is to
become of her career as a music-teacher? She can't get lessons here, and
there's the expense--