but the most superficial questions. We're not
intimate enough for anything else. I've coached you pretty thoroughly,
and I think you'll get on all right."

Worth's courage carried her successfully through the ordeal of
arriving at Beechwood and meeting Mrs. Kirby. She was unsuspectingly
accepted as Millicent Moore, and found her impersonation of that young
lady not at all difficult. No dangerous subject of conversation was
introduced and nothing personal was said until Mr. Kirby came in. He
looked so scrutinizingly at Worth as he shook hands with her that the
latter felt her heart beating very fast. Did he suspect?

"Upon my word, Miss Moore," he said genially, "you gave me quite a
start at first. You are very like what a half-sister of mine used to
be when a girl long ago. Of course the resemblance must be quite
accidental."

"Of course," said Worth, without any very clear sense of what she was
saying. Her face was uncomfortably flushed and she was glad when tea
was announced.

As nothing more of an embarrassing nature was said, Worth soon
recovered her self-possession and was able to enter into the
conversation. She liked the Kirbys; still, under her enjoyment, she
was conscious of a strange, disagreeable feeling that deepened as the
evening wore on. It was not fear--she was not at all afraid of
betraying herself now. It had even been easier than she had expected.
Then what was it? Suddenly Worth flushed again. She knew now--it was
shame. She was a guest in that house as an impostor! What she had done
seemed no longer a mere joke. What would her host and hostess say if
they knew? That they would never know made no difference. _She_
herself could not forget it, and her realization of the baseness of
the deception grew stronger under Mrs. Kirby's cordial kindness.

Worth never forgot that evening. She compelled herself to chat as
brightly as possible, but under it all was that miserable
consciousness of falsehood, deepening every instant. She was thankful
when the time came to leave. "You must come up often, Miss Moore,"
said Mrs. Kirby kindly. "Look upon Beechwood as a second home while
you are in Kinglake. We have no daughter of our own, so we make a
hobby of cultivating other people's."

When Millicent returned home from the Alpha Gamma outing, she found
Worth in their room, looking soberly at the mirror. Something in her
chum's expression alarmed her. "Worth, what is it? Did they suspect?"

"No," said Worth