lerate you very much indeed, or I should not endure it.
There, it's a fact that I do care for you. I don't mind mother, and I
don't mind your mother; but I am willing to be a little bit good if you
are with me. But I am not going away from you now. You can choose
whether you have me in your room all night or whether you and I spend a
happy time in that dear little bower in the plantation."

"I cannot choose either," said Rosamund stoutly, "for I will tell you
what did happen. I promised Professor Merriman that I would have nothing
to do with you for a whole week. At the end of that time I was to give
him my decision. Now, this is Wednesday, so the week won't be up until
Sunday. So you must go, Irene. You must go at once. I will meet you at
the end of the week, or, if you prefer it, I will go down to Professor
Merriman now and tell him that you came in, and that I asked you to go."

"Oh, what a mean spitfire of a thing you'd be if you did that!" said
Irene, her eyes flashing with anger. "You can't mean it--you simply
can't."

Just then there was the noise of approaching footsteps on the landing
outside, and the handle of the door was turned. In a flash, so quickly
that even Rosamund could not believe her own eyes, Irene was hiding
under the bed, and Lucy Merriman entered.

Lucy looked prim and neat, as usual, in her white dressing-gown and her
hair in a long plait down her back.

"I have come for--but surely you were talking to some one?" she said,
addressing Rosamund.

"I sometimes repeat poems to myself," said Rosamund, who was standing
with her back to Lucy, quivering all over with indignation.

"But I heard two voices; and it is against the rules for any noise to be
made in the bedrooms after ten o'clock. I have come for----"

"Do you mind telling me what you have come for, so that you may get it
and go?" was Rosamund's response.

"You are exceedingly impertinent," said Lucy. "Why do you always address
me as you do? You try your utmost to make me unhappy in my own home."

"And you, instead of treating me as an honored guest, try your utmost to
make me miserable," was Rosamund's quick reply. "Never mind," she
continued, hot passion getting the better of her; "I shall not be with
you much longer."

"That is quite nice--that is what I hoped," said Lucy almost gleefully.
"Well, Jane Denton is very bad, and they are thinking of sending for the
doctor. Of course, you don't care whether your friend lives or dies