's arrival. She was no longer in terror of her life. Rosamund
suggested to her that she should lock her door at nights, which the poor
lady did very willingly. She told her there was not the slightest danger
of anything happening, as nothing would induce Irene to give her any
more frights.

"But if you are nervous, do lock your door," she said; "and if you
really want pills for your indigestion, I will keep them for you, and
see they are not meddled with."

Miss Frost had attended to all Rosamund's directions, for this masterful
young woman was really ruling the entire house. The servants, too,
seemed very much brighter and better. Lady Jane was heard to laugh
constantly, and was even induced to play some old-fashioned music on the
old piano in the drawing-room.

As to Irene, she wore white dresses and blue dresses and pink dresses,
and was not once seen in the obnoxious red.

"That dress you can put on the day I leave The Follies," Rosamund had
said to her young friend. "No, I am not going to hide it or put it away.
It can hang in your wardrobe; but you are not to wear it while I am
here, for I dislike it. I want you to be pretty and beautiful, and an
influence for good, as God meant you to be."

Now, all these things told upon Irene; but most of all was she amazed
and lifted out of herself when both Miss Frost and Rosamund discovered
that she had as quick and clever a mind as she had a beautiful face. It
is true she hardly knew anything. She could read and write, and had read
a great many books; but all the ordinary subjects of education had been
set aside by the willful child.

Rosamund now suggested that they should both compete for a small prize.
She chose a subject which she herself knew nothing about, therefore she
said they were very nearly equal. They both did compete, and perhaps
Rosamund did not exactly put forth her full powers; but, anyhow, in the
end Irene won, and her delight was beyond bounds. She rushed down to her
mother's boudoir and showed her the beautifully bound volume of
Kingsley's _Water Babies_ which was the prize she had won.

"I have got it through merit," she said. "Think of my getting anything
through merit!"

Lady Jane very nearly cried, but she restrained herself, for Rosamund
followed; whose face, with its slightly flushed cheeks and its eyes full
of light and happiness, showed Lady Jane what a splendid character her
young friend possessed. How could she ever thank God enough fo