s and labelled with her name, a cold
hand seemed to close about her heart. Still, she said to herself,
he was doing all this to make it seem more real.

But now it was morning, and she could disbelieve it no longer.
Esther had come to her bedside and kissed her sorrowfully, her
beautiful face troubled and tender. She had begged as she had
never done before for a remission of poor Judy's sentence, but
the Captain was adamant. It was she and she only who was always
ringleader in everything; the others would behave when she was not
there to incite them to mischief and go she should. Besides, he
said, it would be the making of her. It was an excellent school
he had chosen for her; the ladies who kept it were kind, but very
firm, and Judy was being ruined for want of a firm hand. Which,
indeed, was in a measure true.

Judy sat bolt upright in bed at the sight of Esther's sorrowful
face.

"It's no good, dear; there's no way out of it," she said gently.
"But you'll go like a brave girl, won't you, Ju-Ju? You always
were the sort to die game, as Pip says."

Judy gulped down a great lump in her throat, and her poor little
face grew white and drawn.

"It's all right, Essie. There, you go on down to breakfast,"
she said, in a voice that, only shook a little; "and please
leave the General, Esther; I'll bring him down with me."

Esther deposited her little fat son on the pillow, and with one
loving backward glance went out of the door.

And Judy pulled the little lad down into her arms, and covered the
bedclothes right over both their heads, and held him in a fierce,
almost desperate clasp for a minute or two, and buried her face
in his soft, dimpled neck, and kissed it till her lips ached.

He fought manfully against these troublesome proceedings, and at
last objected, with an angry scream, to being suffocated. So she
flung back the clothes and got out of bed, leaving him to burrow
about among the pillows, and pull feathers out of a hole in one
of them.

She dressed in a quick nervous fashion, did her hair with more
care than usual, and then picked up the General and took him along
the passage into the nursery. All the others were here, and, with
Esther, were evidently discussing her. The three girls looked
tearful and protesting; Pip had just been brought to book for
speaking disrespectfully of his father, and was looking sullen;
and Bunty, not knowing what else to do at such a crisis, had fallen
to catchi