Herbert, treated
her almost like a friend, wrote notes to her, left flowers in her
bedroom, and walked arm-in-arm with her in the garden. Perhaps the
mistress was lonely, possibly she was flattered by receiving so much
attention, at any rate she allowed Laurette to be on terms of great
intimacy, and gave her a far larger share of her confidence than was at
all wise. Laurette, after a hot affection lasting three weeks, got tired
of Miss Herbert, and suddenly cooled off. Gowan and Carmel, going into
the sitting-room one day, found her discussing her former idol with a
group of her chums.

"Do you call her pretty? Well, now, I _don't_!" she was saying
emphatically. "She may have been pretty once, but now she's getting
decidedly _passee_. I can't say I admire faded sentimental people!"

"Sentimental?" said Truie. "I shouldn't call her sentimental at all.
She's only too horribly practical, in my opinion!"

"You don't know her as I do! My dear! The things she's told me! The love
affairs she's been through! I had the whole history of them. And she
used to blush, and look most romantic. It was all I could do not to
burst out laughing. You'd scream if I were to tell you! First there was
a clergyman----"

"Here, stop!" interrupted Gowan, breaking abruptly into the
conversation, and turning two blazing blue eyes on Laurette. "Anything
Miss Herbert may have told you was certainly in confidence, and to go
and blab it over the school seems to me the meanest, sneakiest trick
I've ever heard of! You're an absolute blighter, Laurette!"

"Well, I'm sure! What business is it of yours, Gowan Barbour, or of
Carmel Ingleton's either? Cheek!"

"It _is_ our business!" flared Carmel, as indignant as Gowan. "It's
horribly mean to make friends with any one, and hear all her secrets,
and then go and make fun of them!"

"It's playing it low!" added Gowan, determined to speak her mind for
once. "And I hope somebody will make fun of _you_ some day just to
serve you right! Some day _you'll_ be _faded_ and _passee_, and people
will giggle and say you haven't 'got off' in spite of all your efforts,
and they wonder how old you really are, and they remember when you came
out, and you can't be a chicken, and they don't like to see 'mutton
dressed like lamb,' and all the rest of the kind pleasant things that
people of your type find to say. _I_ know! Well, I shan't be in the
least sorry for you! It will be a judgment!"

Laurette had made a desper