breaking her heart for you. Oh! I could cry when
I think of Frances's pain!"

"Dear little friend!" said Arnold. "Then if that is so--God grant it,
oh, God grant it--Frances and I must turn to you to help us."

Fluff's face brightened.

"I will tell you my plan," she said. "But first of all you must answer
me a question."

"What is it? I will answer anything."

"Mr. Arnold--"

"You said you would call me Philip."

"Oh, well, Philip--I rather like the name of Philip--Philip, are you a
rich man?"

"That depends on what you call riches, Fluff. I have brought fifteen
thousand pounds with me from the other side of the world. I took five
years earning it, for all those five years I lived as a very poor man, I
was adding penny to penny, and pound to pound, to Frances's fortune."

"That is right," exclaimed Fluff, clapping her hands. "Frances's
fortune--then, of course, then you will spend it in saving her."

"I would spend every penny to save her, if I only knew how."

"How stupid you are," said Fluff. "Oh, if only I were a man!"

"What would you do, if you were?"

"What would I not do? You have fifteen thousand pounds, and Frances is
in all this trouble because of six thousand pounds. Shall I tell you,
must I tell you what you ought to do?"

"Please--pray tell me."

"Oh, it is so easy. You must get the name of the old horror in London to
whom the squire owes six thousand pounds, and you must give him six out
of your fifteen, and so pay off the squire's debt. You must do this
and--and--"

"Yes, Fluff; I really do think you are the cleverest little girl I ever
came across."

"The best part is to come now," said Fluff. "Then you go to the squire;
tell him that you will sell the Firs over his head, unless he allows you
to marry Frances. Oh, it is so easy, so, so delightful!"

"Give me your hand, Fluff. Yes, I see light--yes. God bless you, Fluff!"

"There is no doubt she has accepted him," reported Mary Mills to her
fellows. "They have both appeared again around the yew hedge, and he has
taken her hand, and he is smiling. Oh, he is lovely when he smiles!"

"I wish I was grown up," sighed Marion, from behind. "I'd give anything
in all the world to have a lover."

"It will be interesting to watch Fluff at supper to-night," exclaimed
Katie Philips. "Of course she'll look intensely happy. I wonder if
she'll wear an engagement-ring."

The supper hour came. Fluff took her seat among the smaller girls; her