k round. She went to her room, and sat
down in the growing dusk to think, with a hot lump in her throat.

Mrs. Atwell found her there an hour later, when she climbed to the
chamber where she thought she ought to have heard Clementina moving
about over her own room.

"Didn't know but I could help you do youa dressin'," she began, and then
at sight of the dim figure she broke off: "Why, Clem! What's the matte?
Ah' you asleep? Ah' you sick? It's half an hour of the time and--"

"I'm not going," Clementina answered, and she did not move.

"Not goin'! Why the land o'--"

"Oh, I can't go, Mrs. Atwell. Don't ask me! Tell Mrs. Milray, please!"

"I will, when I got something to tell," said Mrs. Atwell. "Now, you just
say what's happened, Clementina Claxon!" Clementina suffered the woful
truth to be drawn from her. "But you don't know whether it's so or not,"
the landlady protested.

"Yes, yes, I do! It was the last thing I thought of, and the chef
wouldn't have said it if he didn't believe it."

"That's just what he would done," cried Mrs. Atwell. "And I'll give him
such a goin' ova, for his teasin', as he ain't had in one while. He just
said it to tease. What you goin' to say to Mrs. Milray?"

"Oh, tell her I'm not a bit well, Mrs. Atwell! My head does ache,
truly."

"Why, listen," said Mrs. Atwell, recklessly. "If you believe he done
it--and he no business to--why don't you just go to the dance, in 'em,
and then give 'em back to him after it's ova? It would suv him right."

Clementina listened for a moment of temptation, and then shook her head.
"It wouldn't do, Mrs. Atwell; you know it wouldn't," she said, and Mrs.
Atwell had too little faith in her suggestion to make it prevail. She
went away to carry Clementina's message to Mrs. Milray, and her task
was greatly eased by the increasing difficulty Mrs. Milray had begun
to find, since the way was perfectly smoothed for her, in imagining the
management of Clementina at the dance: neither child nor woman, neither
servant nor lady, how was she to be carried successfully through it,
without sorrow to herself or offence to others? In proportion to the
relief she felt, Mrs. Milray protested her irreconcilable grief; but
when the simpler Mrs. Atwell proposed her going and reasoning with
Clementina, she said, No, no; better let her alone, if she felt as she
did; and perhaps after all she was right.

XI.

Clementina listened to the music of the dance, till the last