et had said. "There is a fire in the drawing-room: papa likes the
rooms warm. My dresses would not have fitted you, I am so much taller
than you; but mamma is just your height, and although you are thinner
perhaps----But I don't know: the dress fits you perfectly. Look in the
glass, Janet; you are quite splendid."

Janetta looked and blushed a little--not because she thought herself at
all splendid, but because the dress showed her neck and arms in a way no
dress had ever done before. "Ought it to be--open--like this?" she said,
vaguely. "Do you wear your dresses like this when you are at home?"

"Mine are high," said Margaret. "I am not 'out,' you know. But you are
older than I, and you used to teach----I think we may consider that you
_are_ 'out,'" she added, with a little laugh. "You look very nice,
Janetta: you have such pretty arms! Now I must go and dress, and I will
call for you when I am ready to go down."

Janetta felt decidedly doubtful as to whether she were not a great deal
too grand for the occasion; but she altered her mind when she saw
Margaret's dainty silk and lace, and Lady Caroline's exquisite brocade;
and she felt herself quite unworthy to take Mr. Adair's offered arm when
dinner was announced and her host politely convoyed her to the
dining-room. She wondered whether he knew that she was only a little
governess-pupil, and whether he was not angry with her for being the
cause of his daughter's abrupt departure from school. As a matter of
fact, Mr. Adair knew her position exactly, and was very much amused by
the whole affair; also, as it had procured him the pleasure of his
daughter's return home, he had an illogical inclination to be pleased
also with Janetta. "As Margaret is so fond of her, there must be
something in her," he said to himself, with a critical glance at the
girl's delicate features and big dark eyes. "I'll draw her out at
dinner."

He tried his best, and made himself so agreeable and amusing that
Janetta lost a good deal of her shyness, and forgot her troubles. She
had a quick tongue of her own, as everybody at Miss Polehampton's was
aware; and she soon found that she had not lost it. She was a good deal
surprised to find that not a word was said at the dinner table about the
cause of Margaret's return: in her own home it would have been the
subject of the evening; it would have been discussed from every point of
view, and she would probably have been reduced to tears before the fi