"Very true, Charles," he said. "But you are not the man to see both."

Here Meg began to cry. "I'm frightened of Lazarus," she gasped. "I don't want him to come in!" and her father laughed at and comforted her, and finally bore her up to bed, being rather flattered at her devotion to him, as well as touched at parting with his motherless children, whose hearts he had quite won during the long coach journey to London.

He saw very little of his girls as a rule, he had so many other things to think of (he was a great patron of art and letters, a dabbler in politics, and the most popular man in the county), but when he was with them he was charming, and petted them far more than was the fashion in those days.

Meg's predilection for him became quite inconvenient when he tried to leave her; and she clung to him more desperately than ever, partly from terror at her new surroundings and at being left to sleep alone in a strange room.

"I'll show you something beautiful if you'll only stop crying," he said, as he put her down on the nursery-maid's lap and knelt in front of them, Meg still clutching at the lace frills of his cuff to prevent his departure.

"You'll never, never come back no more if I let you go," said the child between her sobs; but, like a true little daughter of Eve, she allowed herself to be overcome by curiosity and her hold loosened.

He drew out a small diamond-circled miniature that hung concealed round his neck.

"Who is it?" he asked in a whisper.

"Mother!" cried Meg; and he was delighted at the recognition.

"There! You shall keep it for me if you'll let me go," he said, and put it in her pink baby fingers, closing them gently over it.

Meg smiled at the shimmer of the stones. "I'll look in and see you asleep," he told her, and kissed her very tenderly as he left; but he did not look in again. Another scene was more than he could stand, and his sister advised him not to.

Meg fell asleep at last with the miniature in her hand, but woke in the middle of the night with a terrified consciousness that some one was bending over her, and feeling stealthily under her pillow.

"It's Lazarus! Father, father!" she screamed, but the figure fled incontinently—and in the morning Meg's diamonds were gone. She never spoke of her loss: like many a nervous child she could not bear to talk of nightly terrors; but for years she was haunted with the idea of that gaunt hungry figure "just outside," who might creep again into her room and stand by her with freezing hands and frost-bitten feet,—a sort of embodied and revengeful poverty.

Nursery days ended under the new régime, and the pretty spoilt baby developed into a shy little schoolroom girl, who curtsied demurely, and spoke in a whisper when she appeared with her sisters in the drawing-room, for a terrible half-hour before dinner.

The girls had their meals in the schoolroom at the top of the house, with Miss Cripps, who, poor thing, had a dull enough time of it; and their world was quite distinct from their aunt's as a rule, though she occasionally invaded it, very much to their dismay.

Mrs. Russelthorpe had no intention of treating her nieces unfairly, and no money was spared over their education; if little love was lavished on them they certainly never expected, and probably never consciously missed it.

Laura and Kate held together with a close and exclusive alliance; and little Meg, who was rather "out of it" so far as her sisters were concerned, would nurse her doll in a corner, and wear the pink off its cheeks with her kisses.

Laura was a sturdy broad-shouldered girl, with a square jaw and clear blue eyes. She was abnormally solemn in the drawing-room, as indeed they all were, but possessed a fund of dry humour that would bubble up suddenly and quaintly even in schoolroom days, and a philosophical self-reliance that unfortunately had a tendency to degenerate into selfishness.

Kate was graceful and delicate. She had languid and rather plaintive manners, and gave promise of unusual beauty. She was lazy and apparently yielding, though, as a matter of fact, she possessed a gentle tenacity of purpose that seldom readily gave way to anything; but none of the Deanes were wanting in obstinacy.

One unhappy day Aunt Russelthorpe made a sudden descent on the schoolroom. She had a habit of bursting in at irregular intervals in order to see how things were going: for she never quite trusted any governess, and was genuinely determined to do her duty by the girls. Her advent was generally a prelude to storms.

"A good storm clears the air," she used to declare; and doubtless she went away the happier for having relieved her mind; as for the atmosphere she left behind, it is open to doubt whether that benefited.

This especial storm marked a crisis in Meg's life, warming her distrust of her aunt into an absolute dislike, that tended to make her childhood and girlhood both morbid and unhappy.

It was seven o'clock, and lessons were over—Miss Cripps was caught napping, and Laura and Kate were interrupted in the game they were playing together, when Mrs. Russelthorpe opened the door.

Miss Cripps had no savoir faire whatever, and they were all taken by surprise, and stared silently at the apparition in evening dress, suddenly appearing in that dull room.

"How sleepy you all are!" cried Mrs. Russelthorpe. "I never saw such quiet children! Do you never have any conversation? One would think I beat you. Where's Margaret? Oh, sitting in a corner as usual. You are getting much too old for dolls, Margaret. Miss Cripps shouldn't allow you to be such a baby—why, how old are you?"

Meg crimsoned up to the very roots of her hair, clasped her doll more tightly, her eyes growing round and dilated, and remained speechless.

"The child's a fool! How—old—are—you?" with exaggerated clearness, and a full stop between each word.

"Twelve," murmured Meg; and then began to cry from sheer nervousness. There are some natures whom tears aggravate beyond endurance; Aunt Russelthorpe lost patience and shook her niece, and the doll fell to the ground.

It was an old and worn and dirty doll, and Mrs. Russelthorpe hated anything old; it was awkward of Meg to drop it, and awkwardness set her nerves on edge. She caught the doll up by its leg, and with an exclamation of disgust threw it into the fire.

Meg screamed, and sprang forward to save it, with her face suddenly as white as her pinafore. Before any one could stop her, she had plunged her hand into the flames, and dragged out a melting mass.

Mrs. Russelthorpe, with praiseworthy presence of mind, caught up the rug and smothered her niece in it.

The blaze was out in a minute, but Meg's arm was badly burnt, and her doll was a blackened stump.

The child was beside herself with grief, and for the moment she no more felt physical pain than if she had been under chloroform. She turned to her aunt with her grey eyes blazing.

"Oh! how I hate you, Aunt Russelthorpe!" she cried. "I can't burn you—I wish—I wish I could; but I will hate you every moment of every day just as long as ever I live!"

It was after this episode that Meg took to slipping away in play-hours, and wandering off on her own devices. She felt secretly sore with Miss Cripps, and Laura and Kate, who had all looked on, and done nothing to avert the tragedy. She buried her doll in a corner of Bryanston Square, wrapped in a cambric handkerchief; but she could never laugh or play there afterwards.

She had suffered for that bit of wax as if it had been a sentient creature, that she had seen writhe in the flames. The object had been absurd enough, but the love that enveloped it had been living, and that died hard.

Meg shot up, mentally and physically about this time, and grew lanky and pale: she was beginning to leave childish ways behind her; but her childish grief had one odd result,—it led to a curious alliance between herself and her old