hing worth speaking of--nothing you
mightn't easily have had in some other way. Therefore you're under no
obligation. You won't want us next year; we shall only continue to want
_you._ But that's no reason for you, and you mustn't pay too dreadfully
for poor Mrs. Stringham's having let you in. She has the best
conscience in the world; she's enchanted with what she has done; but
you shouldn't take your people from _her._ It has been quite awful to
see you do it."

Milly tried to be amused, so as not--it was too absurd--to be fairly
frightened. Strange enough indeed--if not natural enough--that, late at
night thus, in a mere mercenary house, with Susie away, a want of
confidence should possess her. She recalled, with all the rest of it,
the next day, piecing things together in the dawn, that she had felt
herself alone with a creature who paced like a panther. That was a
violent image, but it made her a little less ashamed of having been
scared. For all her scare, none the less, she had now the sense to find
words. "And yet without Susie I shouldn't have had you."

It had been at this point, however, that Kate flickered highest. "Oh,
you may very well loathe me yet!"

Really at last, thus, it had been too much; as, with her own least
feeble flare, after a wondering watch, Milly had shown. She hadn't
cared; she had too much wanted to know; and, though a small solemnity
of reproach, a sombre strain, had broken into her tone, it was to
figure as her nearest approach to serving Mrs. Lowder. "Why do you say
such things to me?"

This unexpectedly had acted, by a sudden turn of Kate's attitude, as a
happy speech. She had risen as she spoke, and Kate had stopped before
her, shining at her instantly with a softer brightness. Poor Milly
hereby enjoyed one of her views of how people, wincing oddly, were
often touched by her. "Because you're a dove." With which she felt
herself ever so delicately, so considerately, embraced; not with
familiarity or as a liberty taken, but almost ceremonially and in the
manner of an accolade; partly as if, though a dove who could perch on a
finger, one were also a princess with whom forms were to be observed.
It even came to her, through the touch of her companion's lips, that
this form, this cool pressure, fairly sealed the sense of what Kate had
just said. It was moreover, for the girl, like an inspiration: she
found herself accepting as the right one, while she caught her breath
with relief, th