"What happened!--what happened last night?--I don't know what you mean."

"Don't say that, mamma: you know--you know quite well. And think what a
grief it would have been to dear father--what a disgrace it will be to
Joe and Nora and the little ones and all of us--if it ever became known!
Think of yourself, and the shame and the sin of it!"

"I've not the least notion what you are talking about, Janetta, and I
beg that you will not address me in that way," said Mrs. Colwyn, with an
attempt at dignity. "It is very undutiful indeed, and I hope that I
shall hear no more of it."

"I'll never speak of it again, mamma, unless you make it necessary. All
I mean is that you must understand--I cannot feel safe now--I must be at
home as much as possible to see that Tiny is safe, and that everything
is going on well. You must please let me advertise for pupils in our own
house."

Mrs. Colwyn burst into tears. "Oh, well, have your own way! I knew that
you would tyrannize, you always do whenever you get the chance, and very
foolish I have been to give you the opportunity. To speak in that way to
your father's wife--and all because she had to take a little something
for her nerves, and because of her neuralgia! But I am nobody now:
nobody, even in my own house, where I'm sure I ought to be mistress if
anybody is!"

Janetta could do or say nothing more. She gave her stepmother a dose of
sal volatile, and went away. She had already searched every room and
every cupboard in the house, except in Mrs. Colwyn's own domain, and had
put every bottle that she could find under lock and key; but she left
the house with a feeling of terrible insecurity upon her, as if the
earth might open at any moment beneath her feet.

She put advertisements in the local papers and left notices at some of
the Beaminster shops, and, when these attempts produced no results, she
called systematically on all the people she knew, and did her best--very
much against the grain--to ask for pupils. Thanks to her perseverance
she soon got three or four children as music pupils, although at a very
low rate of remuneration. Also, she gave two singing lessons weekly to
the daughter of the grocer with whom the Colwyns dealt. But these were
not paid for in money, but in kind. And then for a time she got no more
pupils at all.

Janetta was somewhat puzzled by her failure. She had fully expected to
succeed as a teacher in Beaminster. "When the Adairs come back it will