re fixed on Irene
and the strange look which was filling her face. After a pause she went
straight up to Lucy and took her hand.

"Lucy, will you come with me upstairs?"

"What do you want me to do?" said Lucy, in great astonishment.

"I want you to come with me, that is all."

"But why?"

"If you are at all sorry, will you come? There isn't a minute to lose."

"Yes, go with her--go for heaven's sake!" said Rosamund; and Lucy found
herself going.

They went up the softly carpeted stairs and down the silent corridor,
and then the two girls paused before a door which was partly ajar. The
room was darkened, and Miss Frost was sitting by a little bed, and a
little voice kept on crying suddenly, "Oh, there never was any Irene,
there never was any Irene, and I loved her so! I loved her so! But she
was a fairy, and the fairies took her back again, and--and--oh, I want
to die! I want to die!"

The little hot hands were stretched outside the bedclothes, the
beautiful dark eyes were open wide, and just at that moment Irene, very
pale, still holding Lucy's hand, entered the room. Miss Frost stood up
in speechless horror.

"Do sit down again, Miss Frost," said Irene; and she went straight up to
little Agnes, who, to the astonishment of every one, no longer shrank
from her, but, on the contrary, allowed her to hold one of her hands.
Irene then turned to Lucy.

"Lucy," she said, "speak the truth now this minute, and I will forgive
you."

"It was I who did it," said Lucy. "Go to sleep, and forget all about it.
Irene isn't a changeling at all, and she never had anything to do with
the fairies. I was jealous because you loved her and only her, and I
wanted you to hate her, and I got Phyllis Flower to help me, and we put
the hedgehog into your bed; but we didn't guess--we couldn't
guess--that it would make you so ill."

Little Agnes looked with wide eyes at the speaker.

"Go away now," said Irene. "I think she understands. You go away also,
Frosty. Please, please go!"

Miss Frost and Lucy found themselves impelled to leave the room, while
Irene lay down on the bed beside the little girl, and taking both her
hands, held them fast and whispered softly in the little ear:

"I am no changeling, but your own Irene, and I would rather die than
injure one hair of your head. Come close, darling; come close. It wasn't
I, but another, and I am no changeling."

"Oh, my own Irene! My own, own Irene!" whispered the little voice; a