ftly back into the room.

"What did she say, little one?" asked Judy.

"She was very stilly," answered Otoyo shyly. "She spoke nothing
whatever. I thought it more wisely to departing go."

The laugh that was raised at this lucid report restored good humor in
the company.

A vehicle called for Mr. and Mrs. Kean at a quarter before ten to take
them down into the village, and it was not long before every light was
out in Queen's Cottage but one in a small single room in an upper story.
Here, in front of the mirror over the dressing table, sat a black-eyed
girl in a red silk dressing gown.

"Judith," she said fiercely to her image in the glass, "can't you
remember that you are too poor to insult people any longer?"

Then she rolled up Mrs. Kean's note into a little ball and flung it
across the room with such force that it hit the other wall and bounded
back again to her feet, and she ground it under her heel. After this
exhibition of impotent rage, she put out her light and flung herself
into the bed, where she tossed about uneasily and exclaimed to herself:

"I won't be poor! I won't work. I hate this hideous little room and I
loathe Queen's Cottage. I wish I had never been born."

Nevertheless, Judith Blount did humble herself next day to accept Mrs.
Kean's invitation. At the dinner she was sullen and quiet, but she could
not hide her enjoyment of the melodrama later.

The one taste which she had in common with her brother Richard was an
affection for the theatre, no matter how crude the acting, nor how
hackneyed the play.

But the insulting letter that she had sent to Judy Kean widened the
breach between her and the Queen's girls, and no amount of effort on her
part after that could bridge it over.

CHAPTER XVI.

CHRISTMAS EVE PLOTS.

Molly was not sorry to spend Christmas in Wellington this year. Numbers
of invitations had come to her, but even Mary Stewart could not tempt
her away from Queen's Cottage.

"Otoyo and I shan't be lonesome," she said. "We have a lot of work to do
before the mid-year exams. and by the time you come back, Otoyo's
adverbs are going to modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. You'll
see," she assured her friends cheerfully.

And when the last train-load pulled out of Wellington, and she trudged
back along the deserted avenue, there was a strange gladness in her
heart.

"I'm not homesick and I'm not lonesome," she said to herself. "I'm just
happy. Except for Otoyo