? Why, certainly, you shall if you like. I see
you want to get her to tell you about Irene. I doubt if she will. Do,
please, be merciful. She is very nervous. When she came to us she was
almost ill, and we had to take great, great care of her. Would you like,
first of all, to know how she came to us?"

"I should very much."

Rosamund forgot at this juncture all about Maud's passionate love for
tennis.

"Well, it was in this way. We had no governess; we used to go to a sort
of school--not the Merrimans', for they had not started one at the
time--and I used to teach the little children, and things were rather at
sixes and sevens. Not that father ever minded, for he is the sort of man
who just lets you do what you like, and I think that is why we have
grown up nicer than most girls."

"Indeed, I didn't know it would have that effect," said Rosamund, trying
to suppress the sarcastic note in her voice.

"Don't speak in that tone, please. I think we really are quite nice
girls--I mean we never quarrel, and we are always chummy and
affectionate, and we try to do our best. We are not a bit self-righteous
or conceited, or anything of that sort; for, you see, when our dear
mother was alive she taught us so beautifully. Her rule was such a very
simple one. She never punished us; all she ever said was, 'Do it because
it is right. You cannot quite understand why it is right while you are
very young; but, nevertheless, do it because it is right and because
you love me.' And when God took her, and we thought our hearts would
break, we all sat in a conclave together, and we determined to follow
our mother's rule, and to do the right because it was right and because
we loved her. I cannot tell you what a terrible time we had; but we
stuck to that resolve. Nevertheless, our education was a poor affair,
although father never noticed it.

"One day I was out driving with father, and we saw a poor lady sitting
by the roadside. She looked so forlorn, and her eyes were red with
crying. We did not know her; but she knew us, for she stood up at once,
and said to father, 'You are Mr. Singleton?'

"Then, of course, father remembered her, only I did not. She was one of
the many governesses who had come to try to tame Irene Ashleigh. So
father and I both got down from the gig, and she told us that she had
left The Follies and was going back to London to try to get another
situation. She said that she had sent on her trunks by a porter to the