did
a thing that seemed to her at once delicate and romantic. He made a
go-between of Fanny. Fanny could not keep the secret, and came and told
her that night under a transparent pretext of needed advice. "Mr. Snooks,"
said Fanny, "wants to write to me. Fancy! I had no idea. But should I let
him?" They talked it over long and earnestly, and Miss Winchelsea was
careful to keep the veil over her heart. She was already repenting his
disregarded hints. Why should she not hear of him sometimes--painful
though his name must be to her? Miss Winchelsea decided it might be
permitted, and Fanny kissed her good-night with unusual emotion. After she
had gone Miss Winchelsea sat for a long time at the window of her little
room. It was moonlight, and down the street a man sang "Santa Lucia" with
almost heart-dissolving tenderness... She sat very still.

She breathed a word very softly to herself. The word was "_Snooks_."
Then she got up with a profound sigh, and went to bed. The next morning he
said to her meaningly, "I shall hear of you through your friend."

Mr. Snooks saw them off from Rome with that pathetic interrogative
perplexity still on his face, and if it had not been for Helen he would
have retained Miss Winchelsea's hold-all in his hand as a sort of
encyclopaedic keepsake. On their way back to England Miss Winchelsea on
six separate occasions made Fanny promise to write to her the longest of
long letters. Fanny, it seemed, would be quite near Mr. Snooks. Her new
school--she was always going to new schools--would be only five miles from
Steely Bank, and it was in the Steely Bank Polytechnic, and one or two
first-class schools, that Mr. Snooks did his teaching. He might even see
her at times. They could not talk much of him--she and Fanny always spoke
of "him," never of Mr. Snooks--because Helen was apt to say unsympathetic
things about him. Her nature had coarsened very much, Miss Winchelsea
perceived, since the old Training College days; she had become hard and
cynical. She thought he had a weak face, mistaking refinement for weakness
as people of her stamp are apt to do, and when she heard his name was
Snooks, she said she had expected something of the sort. Miss Winchelsea
was careful to spare her own feelings after that, but Fanny was less
circumspect.

The girls parted in London, and Miss Winchelsea returned, with a new
interest in life, to the Girls' High School in which she had been an
increasingly valuable assis