ith slightly dilated eyes, and neither moved nor spoke.

"What _are_ you staring at?" said Mrs. Colwyn, sinking back on her
pillows with a faint--very faint--touch of uneasiness in her tones. "If
you are in a sulky mood, Janetta, I wish you would go away, and send my
breakfast up by Ph[oe]be and Tiny. I have a wretched headache this
morning and can't be bothered."

"What would you like?" said Janetta, with an effort.

"Oh, anything. Some coffee and toast, perhaps. I dare say you won't
believe it--you are so unsympathetic--but I was frightfully ill last
night. I don't know how I got to bed; I was quite insensible for a
time--all from a narcotic that I had taken for neuralgia----"

"I'll go and get your breakfast ready," said Janetta abruptly. "I will
send it up as soon as I can."

She left the room, unheeding some murmured grumbling at her selfishness,
and shut the door behind her. On the landing it must be confessed that
she struck her foot angrily on the floor and clenched her hands, while
the color flushed into her mobile, sensitive little face. There was
nothing that Janetta hated more than a lie. And her stepmother was lying
to her now.

She sent up the breakfast tray, and did not re-enter the room for some
time. When at last she came up, Mrs. Colwyn had had the fire lighted and
was sitting beside it in a rocking-chair, with a novel on her lap. She
looked up indolently as Janetta entered.

"Going out?" she said, noticing that the girl was in her out-door wraps.
"You are always gadding."

"I came to speak to you before I went out," said Janetta, patiently. "I
am going to the stationer's, and to the Beaminster _Argus_ Office. I
mean to make it well known in the town that I want to give music and
singing-lessons. And, if possible, I shall give them here--at our own
house."

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" said Mrs. Colwyn, shrilly. "I'll not
have a pack of children about the house playing scales and singing their
Do, Re, Mi, till my head is fit to split. You'll remember, Miss, that
this is _my_ house, and that you are living on _my_ money, and behave
yourself."

"Mamma," said Janetta, steadily, advancing a step nearer, and turning a
shade paler than she had been before, "please think what you are saying.
I am willing to work as hard as I can, and earn as much as I can. But I
dare not go away from home--at any rate for long--unless I can feel sure
that--that what happened last night--will not occur again."