o be happy. Claire forced
a smile, and said bravely--

"It will be all the nicer for waiting."

"It couldn't be nicer," Janet replied.

Then she looked in the other girl's face, and it struck her that the
pretty eyelids had taken an additional shade of red, and her warm heart
felt a throb of compunction. "Grumbling about my own little bothers,
when she had so much to bear--hateful of me! I've been mean not to ask
her again; mother wanted to; but she's so pretty. I admired her so much
that I was afraid--other people might too! But she was crying; I saw
her cry. Perhaps she is lonely, and it's my fault--"

"What do you generally do on Sundays?" she asked aloud. "There are lots
of other mistresses at your school, aren't there? I suppose you go
about together, and have tea at each other's rooms in the afternoon, and
sit over the fire at night and talk, and brew cocoa, as the girls do in
novels. It all sounds so interesting. The girls are generally rather
plain and very learned; but there is always one among them who is like
you. I don't mean that you are not learned--I'm sure you are--but--er--
pretty, you know, and attractive, and fond of things! And all the
others adore her, and are jealous if she is nicer to one than to the
others..."

Claire grimaced again, more unrestrainedly than before.

"That's not my part. I wish it were. I could play it quite well. The
other mistresses are quite civil and pleasant, but they don't hanker
after me one bit. With two exceptions, the girl I live with, and one
other, I have not spoken to one of them out of school hours. I don't
even know where most of them live."

Janet's face lengthened. Suddenly she turned and asked a sharp direct
question:

"Where are you going on Christmas Day?"

Pride and weakness struggled together in Claire's heart, and pride won.
She would _not_ pose as an object of pity!

"Oh, I'm going--out!" said she with an air, but Janet Willoughby was not
to be put off so easily as that. Her brown eyes sent out a flash of
light. She demanded sternly:

"Where?"

"Really--" Claire tossed her head with the air of a duchess who was so
overburdened with invitations that she found it impossible to make a
choice between them. "Really, don't you know, I haven't quite
decided--"

"Claire Gifford, you mean, horrid girl, don't dare to quibble! You are
going nowhere, and you know it. Nobody has invited you for Christmas
Day; that's why you were