not mean to put you down just yet. Indeed, I think I had better carry
you upstairs again." She left the room swiftly, pausing only at the door
to add a few words: "I will be down again directly. I shall be glad if
Percival will wait."

There was a short silence, during which Mrs. Heron dried her eyes, and
Percival stared uncomfortably at the toe of his left boot.

"Surely Elizabeth has a right to her own secrets," said Kitty, from her
station on the hearth. But nobody replied.

Presently Elizabeth came down again, with a couple of letters in her
hand. It seemed almost as if she had been upstairs to rub a little life
and colour into her face, for her cheeks were carnation when she
returned, and her eyes unusually bright.

"Will you tell me what I have done that distresses you?" she said,
addressing herself steadily to Mrs. Heron, though she saw Percival
glance eagerly, hungrily, towards the letters in her hand.

"Indeed, I have no right to be distressed," replied Mrs. Heron, still,
however, in an exceedingly hurt tone. "Your own affairs are your own
property, my dear Lizzie, as Kitty has just remarked; but, considering
the care and--the--the affection-lavished upon you here----"

She stopped short; Percival's dark eyes were darting their angry
lightning upon her.

"A care and affection," he said, "which condemned her to the nursery in
order that she might indulge her extreme love for children, and save you
the expense of a nursery-maid."

"You have no right to make such a remark, Percival!" exclaimed his
step-mother, feebly, but she quailed beneath the sneer instead of
resenting it. Elizabeth turned sharply upon her cousin.

"No," she said, "you have no right to make such a remark. As you know
very well, I had no friends, no money, no home, when Uncle Alfred
brought me here. I was a beggar--I should have starved, perhaps--but for
him. I owe him everything--and I do not forget my debt."

"Everything," said Percival, incisively, "except, I suppose, your
confidence."

She turned away and walked up to Mrs. Heron's sofa. Here her manner
changed, it became soft and womanly; her voice took a gentler tone.
"What is it, Aunt Isabel?" she said. "I am ready to give you all the
confidence that you wish for. I will have no secrets from you."

"Oh, then, Lizzie, is it true?" said Kitty, upsetting the cat in her
haste, and flying across the room to her cousin's side, while Mrs.
Heron, taken by surprise, did nothing but