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“Oh no, father, you couldn’t think of such a thing,” I said.

He smiled and looked at me.

“Well, young people,” he said, “you seem to be having a very merry time. But where’s my Knight of the Poached Egg? Why is he not present?”

However inclined to be impertinent and saucy and rude to me Alex and Charley were when father was not present, they never dared to show this spirit when he was by.

Father related the story of Von Marlo and the poached egg to the other children.

“He is a chivalrous fellow, and I shall talk to him about it when I see him, and thank him. I was very rude to him just now; but as to you, Alex and Charley, if you ever let it leak out at college that he did this thing, or turn him into ridicule on account of it, you won’t hear the last of it from me. It’s a right good flogging either of you’ll get, so just keep your own counsel. And now, boys, if I don’t mistake, it’s time for you to get to your books. – Rachel, my dear, you and your friends can entertain one another; but would it not be nicest and more cheerful if you first of all requested the presence of Hannah to remove the tea-things?”

As father spoke he bowed to the girls, marched the boys in front of him out of the room, and closed the door behind him.

“Well, I never!” exclaimed Agnes. “To be sure, Dumps, you do have exciting times in this house!”

“I am very glad you have enjoyed it,” I said, and I sat down and pushed my hair away from my face.

“How flushed your cheeks are! And where is the Knight of the Poached Egg? What a very funny boy he must be!”

“But you two mustn’t tell the story about him either,” I said. “I mean, if you have any friends at the college, you mustn’t relate it, for they might laugh, and he was really very chivalrous. Father thinks a lot of him; I can see that. And as to me, I think he is the most chivalrous boy I have ever come across in the whole course of my life.”

“Oh, that’s because he said you were pretty. That’s a foreigner’s way of talking. Alex spoke about it when you had gone out of the room. He said of course his sister was good-looking; he would always stand up for his sister; but it was a foreigner’s way.”

As Agnes spoke she raised her somewhat piquant little face and glanced at me, as much as to say, “Poor Dumps! you are very plain, but of course your own people must stand up for you.”

“Well, we can have some games now,” I said, forcing myself to turn the conversation.

But the girls were disinclined for games; they preferred to sit by the fire and talk, and ask me innumerable questions about the school, my brothers, and Mr Von Marlo, and if Mr Von Marlo would be allowed to come to see them on Sunday evenings, and if I would bring him, and all sorts of talk of that sort. I answered that I shouldn’t be allowed to do anything of the sort, and that the only boy I knew in the school except my brothers was Squibs, and of course, now, Mr Von Marlo.

“Well, well! we’ll come and see you again if you like; and you must have tea with us, you know, Rachel. Come to see us the night after to-morrow, and we’ll have some friends who will surprise you a bit. You do look very nice in that pale-blue dress. But good-bye now, for it is getting late.”

Part 1, Chapter III
A Welcome Caller

Father looked mysterious during the next few days. I mean that he had begun a strange new habit. During meals he used to put down his knife and fork and stare hard at me. Now, until the affair of the poached egg he had hardly noticed me. He had an abstracted way about him, as though he did not see anybody. Sometimes he would address me as though I were one of the schoolboys, and would say, “Hurry up, Stumps, with your lessons;” or, “My dear Moore, you will never win that scholarship if you don’t put your back into the thing.” And then he would start violently and say, “Oh, it’s only little Dumps, after all!”

But this new sort of staring was quite different. He was looking at me as though he saw me, and as though he were disturbed about something. I used to turn very red and fidget and look down, and look up again, and get the boys to talk, and employ all sorts of devices to get his eyes off me. But it was all of no use; those large, calm, thoughtful eyes of his seemed screwed to my face, and at times I got quite nervous about it.

After a second or even a third day had passed, and this habit of father’s had become in a measure confirmed, I went down to the kitchen to consult Hannah.

“Hannah,” I said, “I don’t think father is at all well.”

“And whatever do you come and say that to me for?” said Hannah.

She was crosser than usual. It was the sort of day to make any woman cross, for there was a dreadful fog outside, and a lot of it had got into the kitchen, and the little stove in the farther corner did not half warm it, and Hannah had a cold. That was certain, for she wore her plaid shawl. Her plaid shawl had been left to her by her grandmother, and she never put it on except when she was afflicted with a cold. She then wore it crossed on her chest and tied behind. She did not like to be remarked on when she wore that shawl, and the boys and I respected her on these occasions, and helped her as much as we could, and had very plain things for dinner.

So now, when I saw the shawl, and observed how red Hannah’s nose was and how watery her eyes were, I said, “Oh dear, dear! I suppose I oughtn’t to come complaining.”

“I wish to goodness you’d keep up in your own part of the house – that I do,” said Hannah. “This fog makes one choke, and it’s so dismal and dark, and one can’t get any light from these bits of candles. I misdoubt me if you’ll get much dinner to-day, Miss Rachel. But I don’t suppose you children will mind.”

“I tell you what,” I said; “I do wish you’d let me cook the dinner. I can, and I’d love to.”

“You cook the dinner!” said Hannah in disdain. “And a pretty sort of mess you’d have for the Professor if you gave him his food.”

“Well, at any rate, Hannah, you can’t say that you are the only one who can cook. Think of Mr Von Marlo.”

“Don’t bother me by mentioning that gawky creature.”

“I don’t think he’s gawky at all,” I said.

“But I say he is! Now then, we won’t discuss it. What I want to know is, why have you come bothering down, and why have you took it into your head that the Professor is ill? Bless him! he ain’t ill; his appetite’s too hearty.”

“He does eat well,” I admitted. “But what I wanted to tell you is this – he has taken to staring at me.”

Hannah stopped in her occupation, threw her hands to her sides, and then taking up a lighted candle which stood on a table near, she brought it close to me and looked hard into my face. She made a rapid inspection.

“You ain’t got any spots on you, or anything of that sort,” she said.

“Oh, I hope not, Hannah!” I said. “That would be a terribly uninteresting way of explaining why father stares at me. I am sure I haven’t,” I continued, rubbing my hands over my face, which felt quite smooth.

“Then I don’t see why he do it,” said Hannah, “for you ain’t anything to look at.”

“I know that,” I replied humbly; “but that makes it all the more wonderful, for he does stare.”

“Then I can’t tell you why; but it’s no proof that he’s ill, for his appetite’s that hearty. I’ve ordered half a pound more rump-steak than usual for his supper to-night. I’m sure I’m pleased he can eat it. As to you children, you must do with a mutton bone and potatoes, for more you won’t get.”

“Very well, Hannah,” I said, and I sadly left the kitchen.

I traversed the dark passages outside, and found the long flight of stairs which led up to the ground-floor; and then I went into the big, big parlour, and sat close to the fire, and thought and thought.

It was dull at home – yes, it was dull. It would be nearly two hours before the boys came home and before father returned. I had finished all my lessons, and had no new story-book to read. The cracked piano was not particularly pleasant to play on, and I was not particularly musical. I could scarcely see through the fog, and it was too early to light the gas, but I made up my mind that if the fog did not lighten a bit in the next half-hour I would put the gas on and get the story-book which I had read least often and begin it over again. Oh dear! I did wish there was some sort of mystery or some sort of adventure about to happen. Even if Mr Von Marlo came in it would be better than nothing, but I dared not ask him, although I wanted to.

I had been to tea with Agnes and Rita Swan, but it had been quite a dull affair, and I had not found on closer acquaintance that those girls were specially attractive to me. They were silly sort of girls; quite amiable, I am sure, but it seemed such utter nonsense that they at their age should talk about boys, and be so interested in a boys’ school, and so anxious to get me to bring Alex and Charley, and even poor, ugly Squibs and Mr Von Marlo, to tea. I said that I could not possibly do it, and then they took offence and became suddenly cool, and my visit to them ended in a decided huff. The last two or three days at school they had scarcely noticed me, and I had become friends instead with Augusta Moore, who was more to my taste, although she was a very plain girl and lived in a very plain way.

Yes, there was nothing at all specially interesting to think about. School was school, and there was no stimulation in the life; and although our house was such a big one, such a barrack of a place, it was bitterly cold in winter; and we were poor, for father did not get a very large income, although he worked so hard. He was also somewhat of a saving turn of mind, and he told me once that he was putting by money in order to help the boys to go to one of the ’varsities by-and-by. He was determined that they should be scholars and gentlemen; and of course I thought this a very praiseworthy ambition of his, and offered to do without a new summer dress. He did not even thank me; he said that he thought I could do quite well with my present clothes for some time to come, and after that I felt my sacrifice had fallen somewhat flat.

But now to-day, just in the midst of my dismal meditations, there came a smart ring at the hall door bell. There were all sorts of ways of pulling that bell; it was not an electric bell, but it had a good ringing sound which none of those detestable new bells ever make. It pealed through the half-empty house as though the person outside were impatient. I started and stood irresolute. Would Hannah trouble herself to attend to it? Hannah was dreadfully rude about the hall door. She often left people standing there three or four minutes, and on a bitterly cold day like this it was not pleasant to be in such an exposed spot. So I waited on tiptoe, and at the first sound of the second ring I went into the hall, deliberately crossed it, and opened the hall door.

A lady was standing without. She looked me all over, began to say something, then changed her mind and stepped into the house, and held out her hand.

“Why, of course,” she said, “you are Rachel Grant.”

“Yes, I am,” I replied.

“I have come to see you. Will you take me somewhere where I can have a chat with you?”

“But what is your name, please?” I could not help saying.

“My name is Miss Grace Donnithorne. The Professor knows all about me, and will explain about me presently; but I have just come to have a little chat with you. May I come in?”

“You may, of course, Miss Donnithorne,” I said. I was secretly delighted to see her; I liked her appearance. She was a fat sort of person, not at all scraggy or thin as poor Hannah was. She was not young; indeed, to me she looked old, although I dare say father would have thought her comparatively juvenile. But that sort of thing – the question of age, I mean – depends altogether on your point of view. I thought Hannah a woman almost dropping into the grave, but father spoke of her as an active body in the prime of life. So, as I did not feel capable of forming any correct judgment with regard to Miss Grace Donnithorne’s age, I asked her to seat herself, and I poked the fire, and then mounted a chair to turn on the gas. She watched me as I performed these little offices; then she said, “You will forgive me, child, but don’t you keep any servants in this great house?”

“Oh yes,” I replied, “we keep Hannah; but Hannah has a bad cold and is rather cross. You would like some tea, wouldn’t you, Miss Donnithorne?”

“I should prefer a cup of tea at this moment to almost anything in the world,” said Miss Donnithorne. “It’s this awful fog, you know; it gets into one’s throat.” Here she coughed; then she loosened her furs; then she thought better of it and clasped them more tightly round her person; then she drew her chair close to the fire, right on the rug, which father rather objected to, and put her feet, which were in goloshes, on the fender. She held out her hands to the blaze, and said, “It strikes me you haven’t much of a servant or much of a fire either. Oh, goodness me! I have my goloshes on and they’ll melt. Take them off for me, child, and be quick about it.”

I obeyed. I had begun by being rather afraid of Miss Donnithorne, but by the time I had got off her goloshes – and they seemed to stick very firmly to her boots – I was laughing; and when I laughed she laughed in unison, and then we were quite on equal terms and got on quite delightfully.

“What about tea?” she said. “My throat is as raspy as though it were a file.”

“I’ll see about it,” I said, speaking somewhat dubiously.

“Why, where’s the difficulty?”

“It’s Hannah.”

“Does she grudge you your tea?”

“No, I don’t think so; but, you see, we don’t have tea quite so early, and when your house is so big, and there are a great many stairs, and you have only one servant, and she is rather old – although father doesn’t think her so – and has got a bad cold in her head, and is wearing her grandmother’s plaid shawl, you have to think twice before you ask her to do anything extra.”

“It is a long catalogue of woes,” responded Miss Grace. “But I tell you what it is – oh, they call you Dumps, don’t they?”

“Have you heard?” I said, puckering my brows in distress.

“Yes; and I think it is quite a nice name.”

“But I’d much, much rather be called Rachel.”

“Well, child, I don’t mind – Rachel or Dumps – I must have tea. Go down to the kitchen, fetch a kettle with hot water, bring it up, and also the tea-caddy and sugar and milk if you can get them, and we’ll make the tea ourselves. But oh, good gracious, the coal-hod is empty! What an awful spot!”

Now really, I thought, Miss Donnithorne was becoming too free. It was all very well for her to force herself into the house; I had never even heard of her before; but to put her feet on the fender, and then to complain of the cold and to say she must have tea, and also to grumble because there was no more coal in the hod, rather took my breath away.

“I see,” said Miss Grace, “that I must help you.”

“Oh no,” I answered, “please don’t.”

For this would be the final straw. It was all very well to take Von Marlo down to the kitchen. A boy was one thing, but an elderly, stout lady about Hannah’s own age was quite another thing. So I said, “I’ll do my best, but you must stay here.”

Good gracious! I had imagined the two hours before father and the boys came home would be dull and would pass slowly, but I never was so worked in my life. First of all I had to go to the coal-cellar and fill the empty hod with coals and tug it upstairs. When I got into the parlour I let Miss Grace do the rest, and she did set to work with a will. While she was building up the fire I purloined a kettle from the kitchen while Hannah’s back was turned, and two cups and saucers, for I thought I might as well have tea with Miss Grace. There was some tea upstairs, and some sugar and a little bread-and-butter, and as father always had special milk for himself in a special can, and as this was kept in the parlour cupboard, I knew that we could manage the tea after a fashion. When I got back there was a roaring fire in the grate.

“There,” said Miss Donnithorne; “that’s something like a fire!”

She had unfastened her furs at last; she had even removed her jacket; and when I arrived with the kettle she stamped it down on the bed of hot coals, and looked round at me with a smile of triumph.

“There, now!” she said. “We’ll have our tea, and afterwards I want to have a chat with you.”

I must say I did enjoy it, and I liked the glowing heat of the fire; it seemed to blot away some of the fog and to make the room more cheerful. And Miss Grace, when she got her way, became very cheerful also. She laughed a great deal, and asked me a lot of questions, in especial about father, and what he was doing, and how he passed his time, and if he was a good-humoured sort of man.

Exactly at five o’clock she got up and took her departure.

“Well, child,” she said, “I am warm through, and my throat is much better, and I am sure you look all the better for a bit of heat and a bit of good food. I’ll come again to see you presently, and I’ll bring some new-laid eggs with me, and better butter than that stuff we have just eaten; it wasn’t fit for a Christian’s palate. Good-bye, child. You’ll see more of me in the future.”

Part 1, Chapter IV
Miss Grace Donnithorne

When father came in that evening I was quite lively, but he did not specially notice it. I hoped he would. I felt wonderfully excited about Miss Grace Donnithorne. The boys, of course, were also in the room, but they were generally in a subdued state and disinclined to make a noise when father was present.

Hannah came up with the dinner. She dumped down the tray on the sideboard, and put the appetising rump-steak in front of father. It was rump-steak with onions, and there were fried potatoes, and there was a good deal of juice coming out of the steak, and oh, such a savoury smell! Alex began to sniff, and Charley looked with keen interest and watering eyes at the good food.

“There,” said Hannah, placing a mutton bone in front of Alex; “you get on with that. There’s plenty of good meat if you turn it round and cut from the back part. It’s good and wholesome, and fit for young people. The steak is for the Professor. I’ve got some roast potatoes; thought you’d like them.”

The roast potatoes were a sop in the pan; but oh, how we did long for a piece of the steak! That was the worst about father; he really was a most kindly man, but he was generally, when not absorbed in lecturing – on which occasions, I was told, he was most animated and lively and all there – in a sort of dream. He ate his steak now without in the least perceiving that his children were dining off cold mutton. Had he once noticed it, he would have taken the mutton bone for himself and given us the steak. I heard Alex mutter, “It’s rather too bad, and he certainly won’t finish it!”

But I sat down close to Alex, and whispered, “Alex, for shame! You know how he wants it; he isn’t at all strong.”

Then Alex’s grumbles subsided, and he ate his own dinner with boyish appetite.

After the brief and very simple meal had come to an end the boys left the room, and the Professor, as we often called him, stood with his back to the fire. Now was my opportunity.

“Father,” I said, “I had a visitor this afternoon.”

“Eh? What’s that. Dumps?”

“Father, I wish you wouldn’t call me Dumps.”

“Don’t fret me, Rachel; what does it matter what I call you? The thing is that I address the person who is known to me as my daughter. What does it matter whether I speak of her as Dumps, or Stumps, or Rachel, or Annie, or any other title? What’s in a name?”

“Oh father! I think there’s a good deal in a name. But never mind,” I continued, for I didn’t want him to go off into one of those long dissertations which he was so fond of, quite forgetting the person he was talking to. So I added hastily, “Miss Grace Donnithorne called. She said she was a friend of yours. Do you know her?”

“Miss – Grace – Donnithorne?” said father, speaking very slowly and pausing between each word. “Miss – Grace – Donnithorne?”

“Why, yes, father,” I said, and I went close to him now. “She was, oh, so funny – such a fat, jolly sort of person! Only she didn’t like this house one bit.”

“Eh? Eh?” said my father.

He sank into a chair near the fire.

“That is the very chair she sat in.”

My father looked round at it.

“The shabbiest chair in the whole house,” he said.

“But the most comfy, father.”

“Well, all right; tell me about her.”

“She sat here, and she made me have a good fire.”

“Quite right. Why should you be cold, Dumps?”

“But I thought, father, that you did not want us to be extravagant?”

“It is far more extravagant, let me tell you, Dumps, to get a severe cold and to have doctors’ bills to pay.”

I was startled by this sentiment of father’s, and treasured it up to retail to Hannah in the future.

“But tell me more about her,” he said.

Then I related exactly what had happened. He was much amused, and after a time he said, with a laugh, “And so you got tea for her?”

“Yes; she insisted on it. She wouldn’t let me off getting that tea for all the world. I didn’t mind it, of course – indeed, I quite enjoyed it – but what I did find hard was bringing up the hod of coal from the coal-cellar.”

“Good practice, Dumps. Arms are made to be useful.”

“So they are,” I answered. “And feet are made to run with.”

“Of course, father.”

“And a girl’s little brain is meant to keep a house comfortable.”

“But, father, I haven’t such a little brain; and I think I could do something else.”

“Could what?” said father, opening his eyes with horror. “What in the world is more necessary for a girl who is one day to be a woman than to know how to keep a house comfortable?”

“Yes, yes,” I said; “I suppose so.”

I was very easily stopped when father spoke in that high key.

“And you have complained to me that you find life dull. Did you find Miss Grace Donnithorne dull?”

“Oh no; she is very lively, father.”

Father slowly crossed one large white hand over the other; then he rose.

“Good-night, Dumps,” he said.

“Have you nothing more to say?” I asked.

“Good gracious, child! this is my night for school. I have to give two lectures to the boys of the First Form. Good-night – good-night.”

He did not kiss me – he very seldom did that – but his voice had a very affectionate tone.

After he had gone I sat for a long time by the fire. The neglected dinner-things remained on the table; the room was as shabby and as empty as possible, but not quite as cold as usual. Presently Hannah came in. She began to clear away the dinner-things.

“Hannah,” I said, “I told father about Miss Grace Donnithorne’s visit.”

“And who in the name of wonder may she be?” asked Hannah.

“Oh, a lady. I let her in myself this afternoon.”

“What call have you to be opening the hall door?”

“Didn’t you hear a very sharp ring at the hall door about three o’clock?” I said.

Hannah stood stock-still.

“I did, and I didn’t,” she replied.

“What do you mean by you did and you didn’t?”

“Well, you see, child, I wasn’t in the humour to mount them stairs, so I turned my deaf ear to the bell and shut up my hearing one with cotton-wool; after that the bell might ring itself to death.”

“Then, of course, Hannah, I had to go to the door.”

“Had to? Young ladies don’t open hall doors.”

“Anyhow, I did go to the door, and I let the lady in, and she sat by the fire. She’s a very nice lady indeed; she’s about your age, but not scraggy.”

“I’ll thank you, Miss Dumps, not to call me names.”

“But you are scraggy, for that means thin.”

“I may be thin and genteel, and not fat and vulgar, but I won’t have it said of me that I’m scraggy,” said Hannah; “and by you too, Miss Dumps, of all people!”

“Very well, Hannah. She was fat and vulgar, if you like, and you are thin and genteel. Anyhow, I liked her; she was very jolly. She was about your age.”

“How d’you know what age I be?”

“Didn’t I see father put it down at the time of the last census?”

“My word! I never knew children were listening. I didn’t want my age known.”

“Hannah, you are forty-five.”

“And what if I be?”

“That’s very old,” I said.

“’Tain’t,” said Hannah.

“It is,” I repeated. “I asked Alex one day, and he said it was the age when women began to drop off.”

“Lawks! what does that mean?” said Hannah.

“It’s the way he expressed it. I don’t want to frighten you, but he said lots of people died then.” Hannah now looked really scared.

“And that’s why, Hannah,” I continued, “I don’t like to see you in your grandmother’s shawl, for I am so awfully afraid your bad cold will mean your dropping off.”

“Master Alex talks nonsense,” said Hannah. “You give me a start for a minute with the sort of gibberish you talk. Forty-five, be I? Well, if I be, my grandmother lived to eighty, and my grandfather to ninety; and if I take after him – and they say I have a look of him – I have another good forty-five years to hang on, so there’s no fear of my dropping off for a bit longer.” As these remarks of Hannah’s were absolutely impossible for me to understand, I did not pursue the subject further, but I said, “Father made such a nice remark to-night!”

“And whatever was that? The Professor is always chary of his talk.”

“He said that it was very wrong to be cold, and that the fires ought to be large and good.”

“He said that?”

“Yes, he did. And then I said, ‘I thought you wanted us to be saving;’ and he said, ‘It’s not saving to catch cold and have doctors’ bills.’ So now, Hannah, you have your orders, and we must have a big, big fire in the parlour during the cold weather.”

“Don’t bother me any longer,” said Hannah. “Your talk is beyond anything for childishness! What with trying to frighten a body in the prime of life about her deathbed, and then giving utterance to rubbish which you put into the lips of the Professor, it is beyond any sensible person to listen to. It’s cotton-wool I’ll put in my right ear the next time I come up to see you, Miss Dumps.”

By this time Hannah had filled her tray. She raised it and walked towards the door. She then, with some skill and strength, placed the whole weight of the tray on her right arm, and with the left she opened the door. I have seen waiters in restaurants do that sort of trick, but I never could understand it. Even if Hannah was dropping off, she must have some strong muscles, was my reflection.

The next day I went to school as usual. The fog had cleared and it was fairly bright – not very bright, for it never is in the city part of London in the winter months.

At school I, as usual, took my place in the same form with Agnes and Rita Swan. I was glad to see that I got to the head of the form and they remained in a subordinate position that day. In consequence during play-hours they were rather less patronising and more affectionate to me than usual. But I held up my head high and would have little to do with them. I was much more inclined to be friends with Augusta Moore than with the Swans just then.

Now, Augusta lived in a very small house a long way from the school. She was very poor, and lived alone with her mother, whose only child she was. Augusta was an uncommunicative sort of girl. She worked hard at her books, and was slow to respond to her schoolfellows’ advances of friendship; but when I said, “May I walk up and down in the playground with you, Augusta?” she on this occasion made no objection.

She glanced round at me once or twice, and then said, “I don’t mind, of course, your walking with me, Rachel, but I have to read over my poetry once or twice in order to be sure of saying it correctly.”

I asked her if she would like me to hear her, and she was much obliged when I made this offer; and after a few minutes’ pause she handed me the book, and repeated a very fine piece of poetry with considerable spirit. When she had come to the end she said, “How many mistakes did I make?”

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“You don’t know? But you said you would hear me.”

“I didn’t look at the book,” I said; “I was so absorbed watching you.”

“Oh! then you are no good at all,” said Augusta, and she looked really annoyed. “You must give me back the book and I must read it over slowly.”

“But you know it perfectly – splendidly.”

“That won’t do. I have to make all the proper pauses, you know, just as our recitation mistress required, and there mustn’t be a syllable too many or a syllable too few in any of the words, and there mustn’t be a single word transposed. That is the proper way to say poetry, and I know perfectly well that I cannot repeat Gray’s Elegy like that.”

I said I was sorry, and she took the book from my hands. Presently she went away to a distant part of the playground, and I saw her lips moving as she paced up and down. I walked quickly myself, for I wanted to keep warm, and just before I went into the house Rita Swan came up to me.

“Well, Dumps,” she said, “I wonder how you’ll like it?”

“Like what?” I asked.

Rita began to laugh rather immoderately. She looked at Agnes, who also came up at that moment.

“I don’t believe Dumps knows,” she said.

“Know what?” I asked angrily.

“Why, what is about to happen. Oh, what a joke!”

“What is it?” I asked again. I was so curious that I didn’t mind even their rude remarks at that moment.

“She doesn’t know – she doesn’t know!” laughed Rita, and she jumped softly up and down. “What fun! What fun! Just to think of a thing of that sort going to take place in her very own house – in her very own, own house – and she not even to have a suspicion of it!”

“Oh, if it’s anything to do with home, I know everything about my home,” I said in a very haughty tone, “and I don’t want you to tell me.”

I marched past the two girls and entered the schoolroom. But during the rest of the morning I am afraid I was not very attentive to my lessons. I could not help wondering what they meant, and what there was to know. But of course there was nothing. They were such silly girls, and I could not understand for one moment how I had ever come to be friends with them.

At one o’clock I went home, and there, lying on the parlour table, was a letter addressed to me. Now it is true, although some girls may smile when they read these words, I had never before received a letter. I have never made violent friendships. I met my school friends, for what they were worth, every day; I had no near relations of any sort, and father was always at home except for the holidays, when he took us children to some very cheap and very dreary seaside place. There was really no one to write to me, and therefore no one ever did write. So a letter addressed to Miss Rachel Grant made my heart beat. I took it up and turned it round and round, and looked at it back and front, and did all those strange things that a person will do to whom a letter is a great rarity and something precious.