Instead of
doing this, suppose you take my place when I am away, and help Frosty
not to be jealous, and help Irene and Agnes to enjoy themselves. Just
show Irene that you are not a scrap afraid of her; but at the same time
do not rouse her passions. Will you do this, and for my sake? If so, I
do really believe all will be well."

Hughie was amazed at his own sensations.

"I declare," he said, "you'd turn any fellow into a brick. If there were
more girls like you in the world I shouldn't be surprised if there were
a lot of good men too; and the world could be oiled on all its hinges,
so to speak, so that it wouldn't creak and jump and fret one at every
turn as it seems to have an unpleasant habit of doing at the present
moment."

"Will you promise, Hughie? I think you are the sort of boy who would
keep your word at any and all times."

Hughie mumbled something that Rosamund took for a promise. In truth, he
could not raise his eyes to her face, for they were full of tears, which
he was ashamed to show.

"I wish you'd let me go away all by myself for a minute. I'll come back
before lunch," he said. "You make a fellow feel like a gentleman, and
that's the truth of it."

Then he dashed out of sight among the flowers.

Rosamund's last day at The Follies was spent in trying to soothe all
parties. She tried to make Miss Frost rather less miserable. Hughie kept
a good deal out of sight. Irene was so absorbed with Agnes--her new toy,
as the servants called the little girl--that she did not even remember
that Rosamund was to leave on the following day.

But when the next morning came, and she saw the carriage arrive at the
door, and perceived Rosamund's trunks being put on the roof, she
suddenly woke to the fact that the strong influence of her life during
the last couple of months had come to a complete end; that Rosamund, the
strong, the vivacious, the daring, the noble, was leaving her. All in a
minute even little Agnes seemed distasteful to the excited girl. She
flew up to Rosamund's side and flung her arms round her neck.

"Oh, you are going! You are going, and what is to become of me without
you?"

Rosamund drew her into a little room leading out of the hall.

"Just one word, Irene," she said. "I know you are very fond of Agnes,
and you are behaving splendidly to her; but you will think of Miss Frost
and of Hughie. You will write to me once or twice a week, and afterward,
you know, it is settled that you and I