aid that she freely forgave Hilary--as, indeed, she
did--for all her unkindness and foolish suspicions about her, would have
apologised in her turn for the deception she had practised upon her, that
good-natured lady checked her at once.

"My dear," she said, "I can't see that you did me any harm. You made the
children an excellent holiday governess, and you were always so kind
about winding my wool and picking up my stitches that I shall miss you
dreadfully. So say no more about the wrong you did me. I am quite sure
that I liked you a great deal better than I should have liked the real
Miss Carson, though I dare say she might have got on better with my young
people. You have heard, of course, that it was my two boys, Noel and
Jack, who put all those things in your box. Oh, not with a view to
getting you into trouble, but it was a prank they had played off upon
Colonel Baker. I made them go down and confess to him this morning and
take his property back with them, and, judging from their crestfallen
looks ever since, I fancy they have had a talking-to that they won't
forget in a hurry. So they have been well punished, and Tommy has been
wired to to come home at once, so he has been punished. And Hilary's
punishment here is to come. It will take the form of such endless banter
and chaff from her brothers and sisters that it will be a long time
before she thinks of playing private detective to any one in my house
again."

That Margaret, too, had been punished for her conduct no one knew better
than herself. Not only had she suffered from a troubled conscience for
the last seven weeks, but she had been distinctly unhappy in the
uncongenial surroundings into which she had forced herself, and for that
she had no one but herself to thank. Nevertheless, although she fully
recognised how much she had been to blame in breaking loose as she had
done, she had learned, from seeing the lives of other girls, that her
grandfather's rigorous rule over her was as absurd as it was unjust. She
was eighteen and she was treated as though she were eight. Why, even
Daisy and David had far more liberty of action than she was allowed. She
looked forward with positive dread to the thought of going back to
Greystones and resuming the queer, solitary life she had led there since
Miss Bidwell had left.

But her surprise was unbounded when she learned, as she did later in the
afternoon of the same day, that Greystones was never again to be her
ho