some excuse. Caroline overlooked the fact
that you have lived an unusually independent life, and I think she did
not just understand how you felt about Lucile. I don't mean you were
right to go there, but-- Well, from now on you are my charge, and the
punishment is over. After this we'll try to understand and trust each
other."

"I am going to be good; you'll see," Charlotte whispered, her arms
about her aunt's neck.

She felt impatient to show Aunt Virginia she was really in earnest.
What could she do? As she dressed for the evening an idea occurred to
her. With many a pang she shook out her wavy brown hair and combed it
resolutely back from her face. It had always taken an absurd length of
time to arrange that drooping mass in just the proper manner, but
Lucile had commended her skill. It was much easier to brush it back in
a way to show how prettily it grew about her forehead, but Charlotte
really considered herself a fright as she tied a blue ribbon on her
long braid.

The change gave her rather a chastened look, combined as it was with a
timid self-consciousness when she entered the dining-room. Her aunts
surveyed her with evident astonishment.

"Well, Charlotte," Mrs. Millard remarked, affably, "you are really a
nice-looking little girl when you let yourself alone."

Aunt Virginia patted her hand and said nothing, but Charlotte felt
sure she understood.

CHAPTER FOURTEENTH

MRS. MILLARD DEPARTS

Relieved and thankful though Miss Virginia felt, and confident, too,
that she and Charlotte would now get on very well together, she still
had something on her mind. The feeling that she was concealing
something from her sister weighed upon her, but not so heavily as her
sense of obligation to the shopkeepers. In her agitation she had
hardly thanked Miss Pennington; and the more she considered it, the
more remarkable their kindness and thoughtfulness appeared. Would
Caroline call it officiousness?

Mrs. Millard had gone so far as to acknowledge the shopkeepers
_seemed_ to be persons of refinement, and their effort to make a
living was, of course, creditable; but she feared they did not quite
know their position. Perhaps they were from some small town, where
social distinctions were overlooked.

"Perhaps they are well born, but have lost their money and have to do
something," Miss Virginia suggested, thinking that the manners of the
young women in question were not in the least rustic.

Ignoring this