ll pale face
up to her sister, "I know I am not entitled to dictate to any one, but
this I know, too, that if I were you, and _twenty_ Aunt Priscillas were
at my side, I should still--go to him! There!"

She conquers. Monica rises slowly, and as a first move in the desired
direction goes--need I say it?--to the looking-glass. Need I say, also,
that she feels dissatisfied with her appearance?

"Then I suppose I had better dress myself all over again," she says,
glancing with much discontent at the charming vision the glass returns
to her.

"No, no!" says Kit, decidedly. She has now arranged herself as Mistress
of the Ceremonies, and quite gives herself airs. "Do not add even a
touch to your toilet. You are quite too sweet as you are, and 'time
presses'" (another quotation from one of her mouldy volumes).

"But _this_," says Monica, plucking at her pretty loose gown, that hangs
in limp artistic folds round her slight figure and is pranked out with
costly laces.

"It is perfect! Have you no eyes for the beautiful? There, go, you silly
child; Nature has been so good to you, you now deride her prodigality,
and make little of the gifts she has bestowed upon you. Go to----"

"Good gracious!" says Monica, pausing to stare at her aghast. "Where did
you learn all that?"

"It is in a book below; I learned it by heart, to say it to you some
day, and now I have done it. There, be quick! He will be _gone_ if you
don't make haste. His patience by this time must be exhausted. Think
what he has been enduring; I only hope he hasn't fainted from sheer
fatigue, that's all!"

"Will you stay here till I come back," says Monica, nervously, "or will
you come with me?"

"I shall stay here; and don't hurry on my account. I shall be quite
happy with this lamp and your Chaucer. There, go now; and tell him I
sent you. And," mischievously, "don't be civil to him, you know, but
rate him soundly for presuming to disturb your worship at this hour."

"Oh! if any one sees me!" says Monica, quaking.

"You will never get hanged for a big crime," returns Kit, laughing; and
then Monica steps out lightly, fearfully, upon the corridor outside, and
so, with her heart dying within her, creeps past her aunt's doors, and
down the wide staircase, and through the hall, and at last into the
silver moonlight!

CHAPTER XII.

How Monica with faltering footsteps enters the mysterious moonlight,
and how she fares therein.

What a noise the t