he stairs?"

"Yes."

Either she was mistaken, or the change for the worse in the weather
made it not easy to hear slight noises in the house. The wind was still
rising. The passage of it through the great trees in the garden began
to sound like the fall of waves on a distant beach. It drove the rain--a
heavy downpour by this time--rattling against the windows.

"Almost a storm, isn't it?" Emily said

Francine's last question had not been answered yet. She took the
earliest opportunity of repeating it:

"Never mind the weather," she said. "Tell me about your father and
mother. Are they both alive?"

Emily's reply only related to one of her parents.

"My mother died before I was old enough to feel my loss."

"And your father?"

Emily referred to another relative--her father's sister. "Since I have
grown up," she proceeded, "my good aunt has been a second mother to me.
My story is, in one respect, the reverse of yours. You are unexpectedly
rich; and I am unexpectedly poor. My aunt's fortune was to have been
my fortune, if I outlived her. She has been ruined by the failure of
a bank. In her old age, she must live on an income of two hundred a
year--and I must get my own living when I leave school."

"Surely your father can help you?" Francine persisted.

"His property is landed property." Her voice faltered, as she referred
to him, even in that indirect manner. "It is entailed; his nearest male
relative inherits it."

The delicacy which is easily discouraged was not one of the weaknesses
in the nature of Francine.

"Do I understand that your father is dead?" she asked.

Our thick-skinned fellow-creatures have the rest of us at their mercy:
only give them time, and they carry their point in the end. In sad
subdued tones--telling of deeply-rooted reserves of feeling, seldom
revealed to strangers--Emily yielded at last.

"Yes," she said, "my father is dead."

"Long ago?"

"Some people might think it long ago. I was very fond of my father. It's
nearly four years since he died, and my heart still aches when I think
of him. I'm not easily depressed by troubles, Miss de Sor. But his death
was sudden--he was in his grave when I first heard of it--and--Oh, he
was so good to me; he was so good to me!"

The gay high-spirited little creature who took the lead among them
all--who was the life and soul of the school--hid her face in her hands,
and burst out crying.

Startled and--to do her justice--ashamed, Franc