‘Is it long since you lost your mother?’

’Ten years.  I loved her so dearly.  There are some subjects about which one dare not speak.  I cannot often trust myself to talk of her.’

I liked her better after this.  At first her beauty and her handsome dress had seemed a little overpowering to me; I had felt as if she were a being of another order, a bright happy creature not subject to the common woes of life.  But now that she had spoken of her own sorrows, I felt that we were upon a level; and I stole my hand timidly into hers, and murmured some apology for my previous rudeness.

’You were not rude, dear.  I know I must have seemed very intrusive when I disturbed you; but I could not bear to hear you crying like that.  And now tell me where you sleep.’

I described the room as well as I could.

‘I know where you mean,’ she said; ’it’s close to my room.  I have the privilege of a little room to myself, you know; and on half-holidays I have a fire there, and write my letters, or paint; and you must come and sit with me on these afternoons, and we can be as happy as possible together working and talking.  Do you paint?’

‘A little—­in a schoolgirlish fashion kind of way.’

‘Quite as well as I do, I daresay,’ Miss Darrell answered, laughing gaily, ’only you are more modest about it.  O, here comes your supper; may I sit with you while you eat it?’

‘I shall be very glad if you will.’

‘I hope you have brought Miss Crofton a good supper, Sarah,’ she went on in the same gay girlish way.—­’Sarah is a very good creature, you must know, Miss Crofton, though she seems a little grim to strangers.  That’s only a way of hers:  she can smile, I assure you, though you’d hardly think so.’

Sarah’s hard-looking mouth expanded into a kind of grin at this.

‘There’s no getting over you, Miss Darrell,’ she said; ’you’ve got such a way of your own.  I’ve brought Miss Crofton some cold beef; but if she’d like a bit of pickle, I wouldn’t mind going to ask cook for it.  Cold meat does eat a little dry without pickle.’

This ‘bit of pickle’ was evidently a concession in my favour made to please Emily Darrell.  I thanked Sarah, and told her that I would not trouble her with a journey to the cook.  I was faint and worn-out with my day’s pilgrimage, and had eaten very little since morning; but the most epicurean repast ever prepared by a French chef would have seemed so much dust and ashes to me that night; so I sat down meekly to my supper of bread and meat, and listened to Milly Darrell’s chatter as I ate it.

Of course she told me all about the school, Miss Bagshot, and Miss Susan Bagshot.  The elder of these two ladies was her favourite.  Miss Susan had, in the remote period of her youth, been the victim of some unhappy love-affair, which had soured her disposition, and inclined her to look on the joys and follies of girlhood with a jaundiced eye.  It was easy enough to please Miss Bagshot, who had a genial matronly way, and took real delight in her pupils; but it was almost impossible to satisfy Miss Susan.