s room.

Unluckily, just as I was thinking this, Belinda made her appearance
through a door leading on to the backstairs.

'What are you doing here, miss?' she said. 'I don't think Hales would be
best pleased to find you wandering about through these rooms.'

'I don't know what you mean,' I said, frightened, yet indignant too. 'I
was only looking at the pictures. In grandmamma's house at home I go
into any room I like.'

She gave a little laugh.

'Oh, but you see, miss, you are not at your own home now,' she said,
'that makes all the difference,' and she passed on, closing the door I
had left open, as if to say, 'you can't go in there again!'

I made my way up to my own room, all the doleful feelings coming back.

'Really,' I said, as I curled myself up at the foot of the bed, 'there
seems no place for me in the world, it's "move on--move on," like the
poor boy in the play grandmamma once told me about.'

And I sat there in the cold, nursing my bitter and discontented
thoughts, as if I had nothing to be grateful or thankful for in life.

Grandmamma did not come up to look for me, as in my secret heart I think
I hoped she would. She was very, very busy, busier than I could have
understood if she had told me about it, for though he did not at all
mean to put too much upon her, Mr. Vandeleur had such faith in her good
sense and judgment, that he had left everything to be settled by her
when we came.

I do not know if I fell asleep; I think I must have dozed a little, for
the next thing I remember is rousing up, and feeling myself stiff and
cramped, and not long after that the gong sounded again. I got down from
my bed and looked at myself in the glass; my face seemed very pinched
and miserable. I made my hair neat and washed my hands, for I would not
have dared to go downstairs untidy to the dining-room. But I was not at
all sorry when grandmamma looked at me anxiously, exclaiming--

'My dear child, how white you are! Where have you been, and what have
you been doing with yourself?'

'I've been up in my own room,' I said, and just then grandmamma said
nothing more, but when we were alone again she spoke to me seriously
about the foolishness of risking making myself ill for no reason.

'There _is_ reason,' I said crossly, 'at least there's no reason why I
shouldn't be ill; nobody cares how I am.'

For all answer grandmamma drew me to her and kissed me.

'My poor, silly, little Helena,' she said.

I was to