d finished the letter, "can you
take your tea after that? Five pounds, and you are to go back
first-class! That I should live to see the day! This is all Sir John
Wallis's doing. There is not the least doubt that he had a wonderful
effect upon Aunt Susan."

"Yes, a wonderful effect," said Florence, in a gloomy voice. She was
wearing the neat and beautifully fitting serge, a white linen collar
encircled her throat, and was fastened by the neatest of studs, and
white linen cuffs also encircled her wrists; her figure was shown off
to the best advantage. On her feet were the silk stockings and the
dainty shoes which she had so coveted a week ago, and yet her heart
felt heavy, heavy as lead. Her mother pushed the five-pound note
towards her, but she did not touch it.

"Look here, Mummy," she said, "we will exchange the third-class fare
for a first-class one, and then you shall have the balance of the five
pounds. It will make up for what you denied yourself to have me here;
it is only fair."

"Oh, Flo, you dear, sweet, generous child--but dare I take it?"

"Yes, Mummy, you must take it; it is the only drop of comfort in all
this. I don't like it, Mummy. I have a mind even now to----"

"To what, my dear child?"

"To take off this finery and send back the money, and just be myself.
I wish to respect myself, but somehow I don't now. Oh, Mummy, Mummy, I
don't like it."

"Florence, dear child, you are mad. This sudden happiness, this
unlooked-for delight has slightly turned your brain--you will be all
right in the future. Don't think any more about it, love. We must go
upstairs now to pack your things in order to get you ready for your
journey to-morrow."

"All right," said Florence.

"You have not taken your tea, dearest. Is there any little thing you
would fancy--I am sure Sukey would run to the butcher's--a sweetbread
or anything?"

"No, no, mother--nothing, nothing. I am not hungry--that's all."

The next morning at an early hour Florence bade her mother good-bye and
started back for Cherry Court School. It was very luxurious to lie
back on the soft padded cushions of the first-class carriage and gaze
around her, and sometimes start up and look at her own image in the
glass opposite. She could not help seeing that she looked much nicer
in her white sailor hat, her pretty white gloves, and well-fitting dark
blue serge than she had looked when she went to Dawlish one week ago.
And that trunk in