are both to meet at the
Merrimans', where we are to spend one term together."

"Oh, dear, how am I to endure that?"

"You will endure it when I give you a piece of news. It is arranged that
little Agnes comes also, and"----

"Oh, have you settled that, you darling?"

"Partly. And Miss Frost comes, too, as they want another governess; and
your dear mother, who needs change, will spend the time with one of her
sisters in Scotland. Now you know exactly what is before you, and I must
be off. I trust you, Irene. You won't disappoint me? If I thought you
could, I don't really know what would become of me."

CHAPTER XXI.

A REAL ROUSING FRIGHT.

Wonderful to relate, the holidays passed smoothly enough. Hughie was the
sort of boy to be touched by Rosamund's words. No one had before
appealed to him just in Rosamund's way. He found, too, considerable
pleasure and interest on his own account at The Follies, for Lady Jane
was singularly kind to him, and gave him a pony to ride, and he was
permitted the rare indulgence of going with the gamekeeper into the
woods to take his first lesson in partridge-shooting; but this came
later on.

Meanwhile Miss Frost made a great effort to recover her self-control;
but such an agony of jealousy had taken possession of the poor lady that
she could scarcely bear to be in the society either of her pupil or her
little sister. Irene exercised more and more influence over Agnes, and
for a long time that influence was altogether for good. When the child
asked simple questions Irene replied simply. She felt ashamed of her own
want of knowledge on many particulars. She went regularly to church
twice every Sunday because little Agnes thought that no living person
could do otherwise. She did not at all want to go, and she trembled as
much as ever when the choir sang, and when the place became hushed and
people called themselves "miserable sinners," and looked so unconcerned
and so well-dressed. But for the sake of Agnes she restrained herself,
for Agnes' little, pale, calm face appeared not to think at all about
the matter.

Nevertheless, it was scarcely possible that such a cloudless state of
things could continue. As to Hughie, he and Irene were more or less
neutral, neither speaking much to the other. They were both absolutely
different, but both were absolutely without fear.

There came a day, however, when Irene took it into her wild little head
that Hughie needed a lesson to be t