all have happened for the best. My great
object all through my girlhood was, somehow or other, to get into touch
with my father. I believed that, if I could get a fair chance, I could
win him over and persuade him to let me pay him a visit--even live with
him perhaps. That was my great dream--and I was prepared to go through a
lot for the hope of it. Well, it didn't come off. I don't know what Mr.
Powers did--but it was not my father who came, it was Mr. Cartmell. I
was taken away from the Smalls, but not allowed to come here. I was sent
to the Simpsons. My father never wrote one word, good or bad, to me. Mr.
Cartmell gave me a lecture. I didn't mind that. I was so furious with
him for coming that I didn't care a straw what he said."

"His coming upset your brilliant idea?"

"Yes--that time. One can't always succeed. Still it's wonderful how
often a scrape can be turned to account, if you think how to use it.
You're in a corner: that sharpens your brains; you hit on something."

"Perhaps it does. You seem to speak from experience."

"Well, nobody means to get into them, of course, but you get drawn on.
It's fun to see how far you can go--and what other people will do, and
so on."

"Rather dangerous!"

"Well, perhaps that's part of the fun. By the by, I suppose I might get
into a little scrape if I stayed here much longer. Chat would be very
shocked--Loft, too, I expect!"

"It is getting on for eleven o'clock."

"Yes." She rose and drew her cloak round her. "Mr. Powers didn't come to
dinner," she said. "On reflection, I wrote to him and told him that it
was better not to renew our acquaintance, and that he must accept that
as my final decision."

"That's something gained, anyhow," said I, with a sigh of relief.

"Something gained for you?" she asked quickly and suspiciously.

"I don't believe I was thinking of myself at the moment."

She looked at me closely. "No, I don't think you were--and there's no
real reason why it should make any difference to you. Well, that depends
on yourself! Mr. Powers is of no consequence one way or the other. The
question is--are we two to try and get on together."

"I got on with your father," said I.

"You didn't tell my father what he was to do and not to do."

"Yes, sometimes--in social matters. It may surprise you to hear it, but
your father was always ready to learn things that other people could
tell him."

"Well, here are my concessions. Never mind what I said thi