you to ask a party of wild, disreputable, untrained children to this house without either his leave or mine!”

“Please, Miss Fleet,” said Phyllis, who had a very quick temper when roused, “they are not disreputable and they are not wild.”

“I repeat what I have said—disreputable, untrained children. I will have none of it.”

“You cannot prevent it now—you daren’t.”

“Oh, we will see. Take this page of Child’s Guide and learn it carefully. I will be back in a few minutes.”

Miss Fleet went out of the room. Phyllis looked after her until the door was closed; then she gave a wild, sharp scream, and rushing to the window, looked out. From there she had a view of the stables, and presently she saw one of the grooms get on her own special pony, Bob, and gallop off. The groom carried a note in his hand.

“What are you doing, David?” shrieked Phyllis from the schoolroom window.

The man paused, turned round in amazement, and looked up at the excited child.

“I am going with a note to the Rectory, Miss; it is from Miss Fleet.”

“Stop one minute.”

Phyllis dashed to the table, seized a sheet of paper, scribbled on it, “Come and save me; I am in the claws of a dragon,” folded the note, directed it to Ralph, and threw it out of the window.

“Take that note too to the Rectory,” she said.

David picked it up, grinned from ear to ear, and galloped off.

When Miss Fleet returned she found Phyllis bending attentively over her Child’s Guide.

“I hope you know it,” said Miss Fleet.

“I have sent a line to Mrs Hilchester to say that it is not convenient for the children to come to-day. If you are very good I will ask the two girls to tea some afternoon when we have settled to our routine of work. Now don’t say any more about them; attend like a good girl to your lessons.”

“But I’m not going to Dartfield this afternoon,” said Phyllis.

“You are if I desire it.”

Phyllis shut up her lips. She could look very obstinate when she pleased. Her eyes now fixed themselves boldly on the governess’s face, and her eyes seemed to say:

“I am hating you for being cruel; I am hating you right hard.” But Miss Fleet was impervious to the flashing glances of her rebellious pupil.

Lessons went on after a fashion, and at last luncheon was announced. Miss Fleet and her pupil lunched in the library.

“Now go upstairs, Phyllis,” said her governess, “put on your hat, and come down within a quarter of an hour. Tell Nurse to see that your gloves are in order; and you had better wear a jacket; it may rain.”

Phyllis went out of the room without a word. Miss Fleet stood at the library door and watched the little figure as it mounted slowly—very slowly—the winding stairs.

There was something very naughty about that little figure just then, and yet at the same time something pathetic.

“Poor child! I am sorry I disappointed her,” thought the governess; “but I have my duty to perform. I hear on all hands that the four young Hilchesters are the terror of the neighbourhood: so wild, so untrained, so disobedient. I should certainly be unworthy of the position I hold if I allowed Phyllis to have anything to do with them. Yes, I will keep my word, and the girls may have tea here in a week or so, but they shall not be alone with Phyllis; of that I am resolved.”

Meanwhile the little girl, having turned a certain angle of the stairs, stood quite still, uttered a strange laugh, and then, turning quite aside from the nursery, ran down an unfrequented corridor and out into the back yard. She had already secured, in preparation for a certain adventure which she was fully resolved to have, a half-worn-out jacket and a torn and very dirty sailor-hat. She popped the hat on her head and fastened the jacket. Then she stood in the yard and looked around her. The only person within view was David the groom. Somehow, Phyllis expected to see David in the yard.

“Did you give the note?” asked the little girl, turning and speaking to him in an imperious way.

“Yes, Miss. I met the young gentleman all alone in the avenue, and I gave it him.”

“And what did he say?”

“He only said, ‘All right,’ Miss.”

“Thank you, David,” said Phyllis; “I am very much obliged to you.”

She ran across the yard and into a small fir plantation just beyond, and there she stood leaning over the railing. David could see her, and he smiled to himself.

“She is a spirited little miss,” he thought. “Didn’t Master Ralph show his white teeth just, when he read her note. His ‘All right’ meant all right, or I am much mistook. My word! the little miss will get into trouble if she ain’t careful; but I ain’t the one to split on her.”

So when the pony-trap came round to take Miss Fleet and her small charge to Dartfield, nowhere could Phyllis be found. The whole house was searched, and the servants were questioned, but no one had seen the child.

Miss Fleet, in alarm, gave up her expedition and instituted a more vigorous search, but try as she would, nowhere could she or Nurse get a glimpse of the child. David, who alone knew the direction in which Phyllis had gone, had taken care to absent himself, and no one else had the slightest clue by which her whereabouts could be discovered. Presently Miss Fleet, in great anger, started off to drive to the Rectory.

“This really is intolerable,” she thought. “I shall have to write to the Squire. Oh, of course, the naughty, naughty child has gone to those other wicked children. I shall have to give Mrs Hilchester a piece of my mind.”