I. I gasped out something incoherent about "carnival", and burst
into tears.

But here the visitor saved the situation.

"It is very kind of the little ones to be _en fete_ to welcome us, Mrs.
Seaton," she said gently. "My own children often dress up when they wish
to give me a treat. I have not seen a carnival since I was last at Nice,
and I don't think any of the masquers were so natural as these. So this
is little Philippa!" she continued as she sat down, and drew me quietly
to her side. "I hope you will learn to love me some day, for your mother
was my dearest friend, and I could not pass through London to-day
without taking the opportunity of coming to see her only child."

She kissed me with a warmth I had missed since I bade that last good-bye
to my father; there were tears in her eyes, and, strangely moved, I
clung to her, crying a little, but more comforted than I could have
found words to tell.

It was thus that I first made acquaintance with one of the truest
friends of my life.

CHAPTER III

I GO TO SCHOOL

"The noises intermixed, which thence resound,
Do learning's little tenement betray."

I had now been nearly two years in England, and the keen edge of the
remembrance of my southern home was beginning to fade slightly from my
mind, though never my love for my father. Spanish I had utterly
forgotten, scarcely a word remaining in my memory, and I think the
foreign ways which Aunt Agatha had objected to had vanished along with
it. It was decided that the time had come to send me to school, and the
particular establishment to be chosen was a subject for much discussion
between Aunt Agatha and her friends.

Lucy and I were sometimes allowed to have afternoon tea in the
drawing-room, "to improve our manners", and on these occasions I found
that my education was the main topic of conversation.

"Send her to Fairfield College, my dear," said Mrs. Montgomery, whose
own daughters were the champion hockey-players of the neighbourhood.
"It is splendid for games. Compulsory cricket, Swedish gymnastics every
day, and a thoroughly healthy and active out-of-door existence. Just the
life for a rather delicate child."

"Now _I_ think they overdo athletics at most schools," said Mrs.
Buchanan Smith, the gay widow of an officer. "Give me the French system
of education. My Stella is at a convent in Paris. I consider the Sisters
teach the most _adorable_ manners, and the girls return home with a