much mind coming to our house in Gwynne Street?"

"Not at all," said Margaret, ever courteous and mindful of her friend's
feelings. "But I must speak to mamma. It may be a little difficult to
have the horses out sometimes ... that will be the only objection, I
think."

But it seemed as if there were other objections. For Lady Caroline
received the proposition very coldly. It really took her aback.. It was
one thing to have little Miss Colwyn to lunch once a week, and quite
another to send Margaret to that shabby little house in Gywnne Street.
"Who knows whether the drains are all right, and whether she may not get
typhoid fever?" said Lady Caroline to herself, with a shudder. "There
are children in the house--they may develop measles or chicken-pox at
any moment--you never know when children of that class are free from
infection. And I heard an odd report about Mrs. Colwyn's habits the
other day. Oh, I think it is too great a risk."

But when she said as much after Janetta's departure, she found Margaret
for once recalcitrant. Margaret had her own views of propriety, and
these were quite as firmly grounded as those of Lady Caroline. She had
treated Janetta, she considered, with the greatest magnanimity, and she
meant to be magnanimous to the end. She had made the gardener cut Miss
Colwyn a basket of his best flowers and his choicest forced fruit; she
had herself directed the housekeeper to see that some game was placed
under the coachman's box when Miss Colwyn was driven home; and she had
sent a box of French sweets to Tiny, although she had never seen that
young lady in her life, and had a vague objection to all Janetta's
relations. She felt, therefore, perfectly sure that she had done her
duty, and she was not to be turned aside from the path of right.

"I don't think that I shall run into any danger, mamma," she said,
quietly. "The children are to be kept out of the way, and I shall see
nobody but Janetta. She said so, very particularly. I daresay she
thought of these things."

"I don't see why she should not come here."

"No, nor I. But she says that she has so much to do."

"Then it could not be true that she had no pupils, as she told Sir
Philip," said Lady Caroline, looking at her daughter.

Margaret was silent for a little time. Then she said, very
deliberately--

"I am almost afraid, mamma, that Janetta is not quite straightforward."

"That was always my own idea," said Lady Caroline, rather eagerly.