sts you must be engaged if she wishes the party to be a success. You
must charge a good deal, you know, or people won't think half so much of
you."

Hope looked at him with shy delight.

"Must I? I should like that. Mr Merrilies, I am so grateful to you
that I don't know what to say. You have made me feel so happy. If I
get on at all, it will be all your doing."

"It will be nothing of the kind. I simply mentioned the word children,
and you pounced upon it and evolved the whole scheme. There is no
gratitude due to me," declared Ralph Merrilies sturdily.

At that moment voices broke upon the ear, and turning a corner, they saw
the three remaining ladies of the party walking back to meet them.
Avice came forward to ask Mr Merrilies some question about the carriage,
while Truda turned to Hope and studied her face with gloomy eyes.

"You look very jubilant. What is the matter with you to-day?"

"I've got an idea!"

"Goodness! Is that all? I've got hundreds." She fell a few steps
behind the others, and added resentfully, "You have managed to keep him
pretty well to yourself, at any rate. He hasn't spoken a word to me all
day. I don't call that keeping your promise."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

PRICKINGS OF CONSCIENCE.

Truda was very silent all the way home; in plain words, she sulked, and
refused to give more than monosyllabic replies to Hope's gentle
overtures. When the house was reached she pleaded headache--that
convenient cloak for every feminine ill, from a heartache to had
temper--and retired to her room for the remainder of the afternoon.
Hope went into the empty library and wrote a long letter home, telling
all about her new plans, asking Theo's co-operation, and sending a list
of certain points to which she wished special attention to be given.
She wrote with interest, it is true, but with none of the elation which
she had known an hour earlier; for at the back of her mind lay a
consciousness that something disagreeable lay before her--a painful
situation to be faced so soon as leisure should be hers. When later on
she sat before her bedroom fire, in the interval before dressing for
dinner, she stared into the heart of the glowing coals and thrashed out
the subject--quietly, sweetly, fairly, as her nature was.

Truda was annoyed, and considered that she had been unfairly treated, in
that another had monopolised something to which she possessed a prior
claim. After that first very candid sta