on his going on to say
that the period might be considerably shortened if she made a rapid
improvement.

"And do you really think, sir, I shall ever be good enough to act in a
theatre like Mrs. Barry and Mrs. Oldfield, and--oh, and Mrs.
Bracegurdle?" cried the girl, her eyes blazing with anxious ambition.

"I don't say you'll act like them. You'll act in your own way, and if
you work hard your own way will be good enough. If you succeed the
friends who are now helping you will be more than rewarded."

"Ah, I will do anything to please you, sir."

She caught his hand and impulsively raised it to her lips.

Gay was a little embarrassed at this outburst. Did it mean that the girl
had fallen in love with him? He checked the rising thought. Yet there
was nothing outrageous in such a possibility. Lavinia was only sixteen,
it is true, and romantic sixteen might see nothing incongruous in
thirty-seven, which was Gay's age.

"What pleases me, child, doesn't matter," he returned hastily. "I want
to see you please others--in the play house I mean."

She looked at him wistfully.

"But," he continued, "it will be time enough to talk of that when I see
how you get on. Now is it all settled? You're leaving this place and
your mother of your own free will--isn't that so?"

Lavinia said nothing, but pinched her lips and nodded her head
vigorously. The action was sufficiently expressive and Gay was
satisfied.

Three days went by. Her Grace of Queensberry's maid, a hard-faced
Scotswoman who was not to be intimidated nor betrayed into confidences,
superintended Lavinia's shopping and turned a deaf ear to Mrs. Fenton's
scoffs and innuendoes.

The girl was transformed. Her new gowns, hats, aprons, and what not sent
her into high spirits and she bade her mother adieu with a light heart.

"Go your own way, you ungrateful minx," was Mrs. Fenton's parting shot,
"and when you're tired of your fine gentleman or he's tired of you,
don't think you're coming back here 'cause I won't have you."

Lavinia smiled triumphantly and tripped into the hackney coach that was
awaiting her.

CHAPTER III

"OH, MISTRESS MINE, WHERE ART THOU ROAMING?"

"Lavina! Have done!"

It was a whispered entreaty. The victim of the feather of a quill pen
tickling her neck dared not raise her voice. Miss Pinwell, the
proprietress of the extremely genteel seminary for young ladies, Queen
Square--quite an aristocratic retreat some two hundred years a