ry impulse was to make it up to Kate. She
did so now with a strange soft energy--the impulse immediately acting.
"Will you render me to-morrow a great service?"

"Any service, dear child, in the world."

"But it's a secret one--nobody must know. I must be wicked and false
about it."

"Then I'm your woman," Kate smiled, "for that's the kind of thing I
love. _Do_ let us do something bad. You're impossibly without sin, you
know."

Milly's eyes, on this, remained a little with their companion's. "Ah, I
shan't perhaps come up to your idea. It's only to deceive Susan
Shepherd."

"Oh!" said Kate as if this were indeed mild.

"But thoroughly--as thoroughly as I can."

"And for cheating," Kate asked, "my powers will contribute? Well, I'll
do my best for you." In accordance with which it was presently settled
between them that Milly should have the aid and comfort of her presence
for a visit to Sir Luke Strett. Kate had needed a minute for
enlightenment, and it was quite grand for her comrade that this name
should have said nothing to her. To Milly herself it had for some days
been secretly saying much. The personage in question was, as she
explained, the greatest of medical lights if she had got hold, as she
believed (and she had used to this end the wisdom of the serpent) of
the right, the special man. She had written to him three days before,
and he had named her an hour, eleven-twenty; only it had come to her,
on the eve, that she couldn't go alone. Her maid, on the other hand,
wasn't good enough, and Susie was too good. Kate had listened, above
all, with high indulgence. "And I'm betwixt and between, happy thought!
Too good for what?"

Milly thought. "Why, to be worried if it's nothing. And to be still
more worried--I mean before she need be--if it isn't."

Kate fixed her with deep eyes. "What in the world is the matter with
you?" It had inevitably a sound of impatience, as if it had been a
challenge really to produce something; so that Milly felt her for the
moment only as a much older person, standing above her a little,
doubting the imagined ailments, suspecting the easy complaints, of
ignorant youth. It somewhat checked her, further, that the matter with
her was what exactly as yet she wanted knowledge about; and she
immediately declared, for conciliation, that if she were merely
fanciful Kate would see her put to shame. Kate vividly uttered, in
return, the hope that, since she could come out and be so charmi