.
Anyhow, I have been sent to fetch a bottle of aromatic vinegar which
Jane, poor girl! said she had left on her washhand-stand. Ah! here it
is."

Lucy took it up. She looked round the room. Poor Rosamund's terror can
be better imagined than described, for the wicked Irene had lifted the
valance of the bed, and her bright eyes and a tiny portion of her face
could be distinctly seen by any one who happened to glance in that
direction. Had Lucy seen her she must have screamed, for nothing more
elfish than that face could be imagined. As it was, all might have been
well had not Irene, just as Lucy was reaching the door, given a low,
wild whoop, and then disappeared again under the valance of the bed.

"Now, I know you have some one there."

"If you are not afraid of rats you had better look," was Rosamund's
quick response. But she turned very pale, and Lucy, who was something of
a coward herself, said after a minute's pause:

"Rats! You know there are no rats in the house. What fresh insult will
you bestow upon us?"

A moment later she had vanished from the room. Rosamund put both her
hands to her hot ears. Irene sprang from her hiding-place.

"Didn't I do it well? Oh, what a hateful, hateful girl she is! Now,
Rosamund--Rose--whatever you call yourself--you had better just get
right out of this window with me as fast as ever you can, or you'll have
Lucy bringing her precious governesses, and her mother, and that sick
girl, Jane Denton--how dare she call herself Jane, my dear mother's
name?--as well as the Professor himself, on the scene to hunt for the
rats. Come, Rose, out with you! We will lock the door first, and then
all will be safe."

It seemed to Rosamund at the moment that even her word of honor had
vanished out of sight, for her hatred of Lucy had really reached
boiling-point. She did turn the key in the lock, knowing well that no
one would break open the door until the morning; and a minute later she
and Irene had escaped by the window, and gone down hand over hand by the
wistaria and ivy until they reached the ground. Three minutes later they
were ensconced in the old summer-house, where they sat very close to
each other, Irene not talking much, and Rosamund wondering what was to
become of her.

"It seems to me," said Rosamund to herself, as she looked down on the
little creature who nestled up almost like a wild bird in her arms,
"that I have burnt my boats, and that I cannot go back. But there is one