and the
two resident governesses met.

Lucy looked with great approbation at Miss Archer when she took her seat
opposite the tea-tray.

"She will bring order into this chaos," thought the girl. "She will
force all these girls to behave properly. She will insist on order. I
see it in her face."

But as the thought passed through Lucy's mind, Rosamund jumped suddenly
up from her own place, requested Phyllis Flower to change with her, and
sat down close to Miss Archer. During tea she talked to the English
governess in a low tone, asking her a great many questions, and
evidently impressing her very much in her favor.

"Oh, dear!" thought Lucy, "if this sort of thing goes on I shall lose my
senses. If there is to be any order, if the whole scheme which mother
has thought out so carefully, and father has approved of, means to
establish a girl like Rosamund Cunliffe here as our leader, so that we
are forced to do every single thing she wishes, I shall beg and implore
of father and mother to let me go and live with Aunt Susan in the old
Rectory at Dartford."

Lucy's cheeks were flushed, and she could scarcely keep the tears back
from her eyes. After tea, however, as she was walking about in front of
the house, wondering if she should ever know a happy moment again, Miss
Archer made her appearance. When she saw Lucy she called her at once to
her side.

"What a nice girl Rosamund Cunliffe seems!" was her first remark.

"Oh! don't begin by praising her," said Lucy. "I don't think I can quite
stand it."

"What is the matter, my dear? You are little Lucy Merriman, are you
not--the daughter of Mrs. Merriman and the Professor?"

"I am."

"And this house has always been your home?"

"I was born here," said Lucy almost tearfully.

"Then, of course, you feel rather strange at first with all these girls
scattered about the place. But when lessons really begin, and you get
into working order, you will be different. You will have to take your
place with the others in class, and everything is to be conducted as
though it were a real school."

"I will do anything you wish," said Lucy, and she turned a white face,
almost of despair, towards Miss Archer. "I will do anything in all the
world you wish if you will promise me one thing."

Miss Archer felt inclined to say, "What possible reason have you to
expect that I should promise you anything?" but she knew human nature,
and guessed that Lucy was troubled.

"Tell me what y