ittle bit of a glutton is
my Jane, and she overate herself at tea at the Singletons'. Now, you
must not breathe it to mortal; but when I saw her taking that third
plate of strawberries and cream, and that fifth hot buttered cake, I
guessed there'd be something up to-night. She gets attacks of
indigestion very severely; but if she has a chance of making a good
meal--I mean a meal that she likes, for, of course, although the food
here is good and plentiful, it is very simple--she never can resist it.
There's my Janey to the life, so you needn't suppose that I am a little
bit anxious about her."

"Well, that's all right," said Laura. "Somehow I thought by your manner
you were."

"That is because I offered to stay in her room to-night. It did seem
such a pity that dear Mrs. Merriman should be tired out."

"You have a very kind heart, Rosamund. Come, you know it."

"Have I? I don't think I do know it. But do you know what it is, Laura?
I am tired and would like to go to bed. Do you mind if I leave you?"

Laura, who saw Lucy in the distance, and was not so taken up with
Rosamund as she had imagined she would be, consented without a moment's
hesitation to part from her friend, and Rosamund presently went up to
her own room. She had said good-night to the rest of the party, and
wondered what she should feel like when she entered her room with no
Jane to keep her company. Not that she was anything like as attached to
Jane as Jane was to her; for she was Jane's idol, her ideal of all that
was noble and princess-like and beautiful. Jane, to Rosamund, was an
ordinary good-tempered girl, with whom she could put up, and on whom she
could impose to a certain extent.

Nothing could exceed Rosamund's amazement, and a scream almost rose to
her lips, when she entered and saw, curled up snugly in Jane's bed, no
less a person than Irene Ashleigh. Irene's exceedingly bright face
peeped up above the clothes. She gave a low, impish laugh, and then said
slowly:

"Don't scream. Keep your nerve. I climbed up by the wistaria. I have
been in bed for the last hour, expecting you. I happened to be hiding
just below the window, clinging on for bare life to the wistaria and the
thick ivy, and I heard the conversation between you and Mrs. Merriman,
so I knew that you would have your room to yourself, and decided that I
would share it with you. Now lock the door, for I have a great deal to
say."

"But we are not allowed to lock our doors," said