ing just as you were going there! Her
mother told me of it when she enclosed Mrs. Rolleston's letter. But you
arrived in October, I think. Where were you those few months?"

"I was staying with a friend," replied Bluebell; but her hand shook and
she became crimson.

Mrs. Markham did not fail to note this, and suspected that during
that friendly visit some love passages might have arisen. "She seems
very sensitive about it," thought the kind lady. "I will get her to
tell me some day. It is such a shame ignoring that sort of thing with
governesses, just as if it were a crime! And if there is really anything,
he might come and see her here sometimes."

But Bluebell remained nervous and out of spirits the rest of that day.

One morning they were sitting together in the pleasant drawing-room; the
children had a holiday, and were playing with their dogs out of doors;
Mrs. Markham was colouring a design for her flower-beds, and lamenting
the non-arrival of some seeds the postman was to have brought. "The year
is getting on," murmured the aggrieved lady; "they really ought to be
sown, and it is such a lovely day for gardening."

"Let me go to Barton and fetch them," cried Bluebell, who was always
ready for a walk. "I shall be there and back before luncheon."

"Would you really?" said Mrs. Markham. "But it looks so hot! Are you sure
you don't mind?" And declaring it was the thing of all others she should
enjoy, Bluebell set off.

It was one of those glorious, sultry days that sometimes occur early in
the year, when summer seems actually to have arrived for the season--a
delusion invariably dispelled by the biting blasts of the blackthorn
winter. Lovely as it appeared it was a very oppressive day for a long
walk; the white, glaring road seemed endless, and she half repented her
offer.

Bluebell was scarcely so strong as she had been, and, having to hurry a
good deal to be back in time for luncheon, was quite pale and exhausted
on re-entering the drawing-room, prize in hand.

The second post was on the table, and the girl stopped short in the
midst of a message from the seedsman, for a deep black-edged envelope,
addressed to herself, caught her eye. Mrs. Markham observed her with
furtive anxiety. It is terrible to watch the opening of a letter
evidently containing sad tidings, yet she was hardly prepared to see
Bluebell, after perusing it drop prone on the ground as though she were
shot, her forehead striking against the