e practical
difficulties and troubles, the very existence of which was unknown to
her young companion.

'It's a shame--a regular shame; that's what it is!' said Frances
vehemently, her face flushing with indignation, 'and something should be
done.'

Just at that moment a figure came running towards them. It was Bessie,
the elder of the Harper girls.

'Margaret, Frances, where have you been? what have you been doing all
this time?' she exclaimed. 'We've had ever so many games, and now tea
will be ready directly. What are you looking so mournful about,
Margaret, and you so excited, Frances? You haven't--oh no, you couldn't
have been quarrelling.'

The smile on both faces was sufficient answer--no, certainly they had
not been quarrelling!

'What have you been talking about, then?' said Bessie again, and she
looked at them with considerable curiosity.

Bessie was two years older than her sister. She was handsomer too, and
much stronger. There was a bright, fearless, resolute look about her,
very attractive and prepossessing. But she was less intellectual, less
thoughtful, more joyous and confident, though tenderly and devotedly
unselfish to those she loved, especially to all weak and dependent
creatures.

'Margaret has been telling me _such_ interesting things,' began Frances
eagerly.

'And Frances has been telling _me_ about--about Lady Myrtle and Robin
Redbreast. Just fancy, Bessie, they know her! She was a very, very old
friend of their grandmother's.'

And between them the two girls soon put the elder one in possession of
all they had been discussing.

Bessie Harper's bright face grew grave; she could not blame her sister
and Frances, but still, on the whole, she almost wished the discovery
had not been made, though 'it was bound to come some time or other, I
suppose,' she reflected.

'I call it a perfect shame!' said Frances, her cheeks flaming up again.
'To think of that horrid old woman having more money than she knows what
to do with, and keeping it all to herself, when it _really_ belongs--a
good part of it, at least--to your father.'

'No, no,' said Bessie, 'we can't say that. Our great-grandfather had a
right to do what he did with his money. And if he _had_ left it to our
grandfather, it would all have been wasted, most likely.'

'If he had known how good _father_ was going to be, he'd have left it to
him, I daresay,' said Margaret.

'He couldn't have known that,' said Bessie with a merry lau