But she isn't fit to go by herself. Get her to take Maitland, if she won't take one of us. She was looking quite ill this evening, didn't you notice?

I wouldn't stay away a week, Rosie, if I were you. She misses you dreadfully if you are away only a day."

"But it is so dull here, doing nothing day after day but wait on Aunt Lucy, and pick the flowers, and look after the old people in the village,"

said Rose, moved to a sudden burst of confidence. "It's different for you, Tom. You have your shooting and fishing, and the estate to look after, and all the rest of it. But I'm at home all day"--

"That's where a girl ought to be, my dear," returned Tom good-humouredly.

"I'm not going to pity you. If you are dull, it's your own fault. Laura isn't dull."

"I don't suppose an oyster is dull," was Rose's disdainful retort. "But it's no good to talk to you, Tom."

"I don't say Laura is as clever as you, my dear," returned Tom, with undiminished good humour. "But it is no good grumbling about your lot.

Aunt Lucy couldn't do without you, and you wouldn't leave her if you could. So what's the use of talking? And as to your being dull, I don't believe it. You only imagine you are. That's where your cleverness comes in, you see. We stupid people aren't ashamed to be contented."

Rose could not help laughing at this, though she felt very cross. But she felt Tom was right in saying that her aunt could not do without her for very long. And she told herself sorrowfully that she must give up all hope of sharing Pauline's flat when Clare went back to dull captivity at Desborough Park. She could not be spared. It seemed doubtful if she would be able to persuade her aunt and Tom to let her stay more than a day or two when she made her promised visit in the following week.

She went up to her aunt's room to bid her good-night, feeling herself a martyr, but determined to bear her hard lot with decent cheerfulness.

Miss Merivale was sitting at the old bureau where she kept her most private papers. She had been reading over again the letter in which Lydia told her of the birth of her little dark-eyed girl.

Many tears had fallen on the yellow pages before she put them away, and she turned such a white, worn face to Rose as she entered, Rose felt horribly ashamed at having ever thought of sharing Pauline's flat. And the good-night embrace she gave Miss Merivale before going into the little white room that opened from her aunt's had compunction in it as well as warm affection.

"Aunt Lucy, do let Tom go with you to-morrow," she begged. "But must you go to-morrow?"

"Yes, I must, dear. And I want to go alone," Miss Merivale answered. Then she pinched Rose's cheek, trying to speak playfully. "You silly children, am I not to be trusted to go anywhere alone? I shall start early, and get back early. It is business I cannot put off, Rose. Perhaps to-morrow I shall be able to tell you all about it."

CHAPTER III. A VISIT TO KENTISH TOWN.

It was just before twelve o'clock next morning when Miss Merivale reached Cadogan Mansions. She told the cabman to wait, and walked slowly up the long flights of stone steps.

About half-way up, she met a girl coming down, with light springing steps, b.u.t.toning a pair of shabby dogskin gloves. Her dress was shabby too, and the little black straw hat had seen long service; but Miss Merivale only noticed her bonnie face. It brightened the dreary staircase like a gleam of sunshine.

It never struck her that this was the girl she had come to see. From Pauline's words the day before, she had pictured Rhoda Sampson as a very different sort of girl.

The flat was at the top of the high buildings, and Miss Merivale was out of breath by the time she reached the neat front door with the electric bell. She had not long to wait before her ring was answered by Mrs.

Richards, a thin, careworn woman, who ushered her into the sitting-room where Miss Desborough sat at her writing-table.

She jumped up, with her pen in her hand. "Miss Merivale, what a delightful surprise! Is Rose with you? I was so sorry to miss you yesterday, but I had to go to a committee meeting. I have more work on my hands just now than I can do. Would you mind my just finishing this letter for the post?

It is very important. I shall not be five minutes."

Miss Merivale, who had seen Clare running about the garden at Woodcote three summers before with her hair flying, was considerably taken aback by her extremely "grown-up" manner. She sat meekly down on the sofa and waited for the letter to be finished.

"There, it's done!" Clare exclaimed, after a moment or two. "Now I will just give it to Mrs. Richards, and we can have a little talk. Pauline will be back in half an hour," She glanced as she spoke at a tiny clock on the writing-table. "Then after lunch I must rush off to Southwark. I shall find a big mothers' meeting waiting for me. The women bring their needlework, and I talk to them. Last week we considered Food Stuffs in reference to young children, and this afternoon I am going to discuss Herbert Spencer's Theory of Education."

"Dear me! these sound very difficult subjects for you, my dear," said Miss Merivale, trying to repress a laugh as she looked at Clare's serious young face. "They must need a great deal of preparation."

"Yes, that is the worst of it. I haven't time for any study. We workers lead very busy lives, Miss Merivale. I am rushing all day from one thing to another, feeling all the time that I ought to be doing something else."

It suggested itself to Miss Merivale that work undertaken in that hurried fashion must do more harm than good; but she was too eager to speak of Rhoda Sampson to think much of anything else. "You have someone to help you, Miss Smythe told us yesterday," she said. "Someone who typewrites your letters."

"Oh, Miss Sampson? Yes, she is an energetic little thing. But she has vexed me to-day. I particularly wanted her this afternoon, and she has asked for a holiday. Her little cousin is ill, and she wants to take him into the country somewhere. She has just gone. You must have met her on the stairs."

Miss Merivale started. "Yes, I met someone coming down. Was that Miss Sampson? Then she is not coming back to-day? I wanted some programmes typewritten. Could you give me her address?"

"Yes, I have it here somewhere. But she will be here on Monday. I will speak to her, if you like I shall be glad to get her some work; for after next week I shall not want her, though I have not told her so yet. Mother is coming home rather sooner than we expected, and I am going back to Desborough with her."

"Indeed? You will be sorry to give up your work, won't you, my dear?"

asked Miss Merivale mechanically, as she watched Clare turning over her address-book.

"Mother has promised that I shall come back later on and stay with Aunt Metcalfe. I shall like that better than this. One gets tired of a flat after a time. But here is Miss Sampson's address. Will you write to her, or shall I tell her what you want?"

"I will go there now," Miss Merivale said, her hand closing eagerly on the slip of paper Clare gave her. "She has just come from Australia, Miss Smythe said."

"Yes; they have been in England a few months only. I know nothing more of her. But she is a good little thing. Pauline does not like her, but Pauline is too critical sometimes. I notice that she is strangely lacking in sympathy towards girls of Miss Sampson's cla.s.s."

It was a long drive from Chelsea to Acacia Road, Kentish Town. Miss Merivale knew London very little, though she had lived near it all her life, and the dreary, respectable streets she drove through after leaving Oxford Street behind her oppressed her even more than Whitechapel had done in her one visit to it with Tom, the year before, to see a loan collection of pictures. Street after street of blank, drab-faced houses--dull, unsmiling houses! She thought of children growing up there, wan and joyless, like plants kept out of the sun. And then two happy-eyed boys came running by with their satchels under their arms, while a door opened and a woman with a smiling mother-face came out to welcome them. And Miss Merivale confessed to herself the mistake she had been making. Where love is, even a dull London street has its sunshine.

Acacia Road was reached at last, and the cab drew up before a small bow-windowed house that had a card, "Apartments to Let," over the hall door. A little servant with a dirty ap.r.o.n and a merry face opened the door, and two boys with bright red pinafores came rushing from the sitting-room behind her.

Miss Sampson wasn't in, but her aunt, Mrs. M'Alister, was, the smiling servant-maid told Miss Merivale, and led the way into the front sitting-room. The boys ran upstairs. Miss Merivale heard them shouting to their mother that a lady wanted her, and she sat down on a chair near the door, trembling all over.

The room was the ordinary lodging-house sitting-room; but though there was a litter of toys on the worn carpet, it had evidently been carefully swept and dusted that morning, and there was a brown jug filled with fresh daffodils on the centre table. On the side table near Miss Merivale there was a pile of books. She looked at the t.i.tles as she waited for a step on the stairs--_The Civil Service Geography, Hamblin Smith's Arithmetic_, one or two French Readers, a novel by George MacDonald, and a worn edition of Longfellow's Poems. Miss Merivale wondered if they all belonged to Rhoda.

She was not kept waiting very long. Almost before she had finished looking at the books she heard someone coming down the stairs, and the door opened to admit a tall, angular woman, whose brown hair was thickly streaked with grey. Miss Merivale found herself unable to begin at once to make the inquiries she had come to make, and fell back on the programmes she wanted typewritten. Mrs. M'Alister eagerly promised that Rhoda would undertake the work. She had not a typewriter of her own, but a friend would lend the use of hers, and Miss Merivale might rely on the work being done punctually.

"It is very kind of Miss Desborough to recommend Rhoda," she said in her anxious voice. "It is difficult to get work in London, we find."

"You have lately come from Australia, have you not?" asked Miss Merivale gently.

Mrs. M'Alister was too simple-minded to discern the profound agitation that lay beneath Miss Merivale's quiet manner. And the kind voice and kind, gentle face of her visitor led her to be more confidential than was her wont with strangers.

"Yes, we came back just before Christmas. When my husband died, I felt I must come home. My brothers offered to help me with the boys. Rhoda has taken the youngest down to one of his uncles to-day. But it's only in Ess.e.x; she will be back to-night."

She said the last words hurriedly, as if afraid of wearying her visitor.

She little knew how Miss Merivale was hanging on her words.

"Your niece must be a great comfort to you," Miss Merivale said, after a moment's pause. "Has she always lived with you?"

"As good as always. She wasn't five when we had her first. Her father was our nearest neighbour; we were living up in the hills then, fifty miles from a town. She used to stay with us for days together while her father went off after cattle. And when he died we brought her home for good. I haven't a girl of my own, but I've never known what it is to miss one.

Rhoda's no kith or kin to us, but she has been a daughter to me, all the same, and a sister to the boys. We've had a hard fight since we came home, for my brothers have been unfortunate lately, and are not able to help us as they wanted to; but Rhoda hasn't lost heart for a moment."

Mrs. M'Alister had been drawn into making this long speech by the eager look of interest she saw in Miss Merivale's face; but now she stopped short, her pale face flushing a little. She felt afraid lest Miss Merivale might think she was asking for help.

"Then I suppose she had no relatives of her own?" asked Miss Merivale, after a pause, in which she had been struggling for her voice.

"She had some on her mother's side. I never heard their names. But her father seemed certain that they would be unkind to the child, and he was thankful when we promised to keep her. He was a queer, silent sort of man.