The Story of Louie

was not big enough to accommodate her elbows, and so supported her braceleted wrists only. There was something contradictory about her attitude. Its rectitude as she sat at the inconvenient lit

gue, ready, apparently against her own better judgment, to b

y sure that though cocoa and candles in the box-room at eleven o'clock at night might seem a good enoug

Miss Ca

d me to come her

lease to wa

er quill and the faint jingling at h

ething or other-say of an encounter with this long-chinned, grey-eyed girl who stood, n

," she said. "I believe there is a copy of them on the smaller bureau by your rig

, but watched Mrs. Lovenant-Smith, waiting for more. She thought that if she waited more would come

"and it ought not to be too much to expec

er paternity had long since gone by the board; the girl had not rested until she had discovered that her father was Buck Causton, pugilist and artists' model, none other; and if Mrs. Lovenant-Smith had ever chanced to hear of her as Louise Chaffinger, and identified that person under the name which (whether from pride, spleen

said slowly. "Why do you say that someth

ith stiffened an

. You may keep that copy; Rule 6 is the one I wish especially to call your attention to. Would

ned to her w

s, what next!"

hat took it. Mrs. Lovenant-Smith's face was wrinkled like a dried apple, and the hand, though beautifully kept, was wr

the word too much dropped from the tip of Mrs. Lovenant-

far they have proved quite sufficient for the kind of student the colle

s!" Louie cried in astonishment

g cashmere skirt, but taking in her lovely hands (

, I wasn't sure whether I

erence of something like sixty pounds a year, with extras, to Chesson's. That is rather a lot of money to hang upon

re thinking of le

r eyes for a moment, dro

o dismiss me or not. You see, you may not want my-kind of student.

the thought that after all Louie was a Scarisbrick and a niece of Lord Moone. Ladies-in-charge of horticultural colleges do not fall foul of the Honourable Em

xtreme, Miss Causton," she said. "All the

say," sa

r of fire. In fact, I'm not at all sure that a fire drill ought not to be instituted. May I add that I quite appreciated the chivalrous way in which

," said Louie

to me as if I were Burnett Minor! 'Kind of student!'-I wonder it doesn't occur to her that somebody mi

ed out past the orchards, up the hill, and s

aken, as it were, at her own word. She herself might be perversely and nonchalantly cynical about her mixed birth, but she did not intend to allow anybody else-Mrs.

n the contrary, she saw to it that it took the form of a pose of gaiety; she could be pitilessly gay with herself. Meek, harmless Cynthia Scarisbrick, for example, could have told tales about her gaiety when, not knowing whether she herself was eligible for presentati

origin was open to question (for the Lady-in-Charge ha

ith, who took a

Mrs. Lovenant-Smith woul

rst she had received her prospectus at Trant. Of course her stepfather knew these other Lovenant-Smiths, the adjutant's

e boys with whom she had romped at Mallard Bois-Roy she had called him then-had been, she now remembered, a Lo

hat Mrs. Lovenant-Smith knew the story of Buck there was non

looked insolently at

as

er that morning; only a pilot, a couple of miles out in the Channel, slowly lifted her nose for a moment and then hid it again. Louie felt a little cold, and rose. She made an attr

she mutte

ept a public-house somewhere up the Thames-Lord Moone's cast-off brother-in-law in a public-house!-and any fitful romantic light that might ever have shone about him was now extinguished. Of course the Captain had uttered his usual wistful formula: "Not a bad f

de of the cobbler's dog, I'm going

What about the Rule: "Miss Hastings does not elope with What's-his-Name the gardener"?-but that would keep. In the meantime she would change into her gardening clothes before lunch. She had shown

alf-an-hour; she had

The copper-haired girl was washing an espaliered plum-tree, and as she turned

you mean? No. Wh

urned her

runted. "It was ripping of you. But yo

made much

eet. "This," she said. "Anybody can do this job, and I've been sorting out pots over there all the morning," she

larship, o

posed to be worki

r were likely to get one unless Richenda Earle got it for them. Louie, who was qui

nd you away till you

ent gesture, and her eye

. You think digging and carrying pots is hard work; you wouldn't if you'd seen what I've seen! When you go to London it's just shopping and theatres and suppers and things; but just you try to keep a small bookseller'

cted outbreak s

s had little meaning for her; she supposed they contained a hidden meaning som

ust for pocket-money, but we live on your pocket-money. I suppose I oughtn't to have come here at all. Not among all you. But I begged father to let me. Father once apologised to me-that was when there was a

ng herself thus. She herself went brightly masked, and disliked to see another's mind naked. Richenda's mind was stripped now.

," Louie said awkwardl

ichenda drew

hair. "I shall just have to buck up, that's all. But girls of your class don't kno

ichenda entered by the side door. Richenda plunged at once into the scramble for house-slippers, but Louie, not having put on

ett Minor. The child rushed to

ng, Causton?

from the dining-room. The girls flocked round

you g

s dre

you g

ou see

ton say sh

ot all a

ot going,"

idest to make up for the

ora

he go

s not goi

ennyson and mocking and dramatic declamations either from the "Pansy Library," or from its brother-classics, of whi

to put something in it if you were going," she

outh gaped wide

one Mrs. Lovenant-Smith may or may not have inferred that she had spent the hours since their interview in contrite meditation. She inclin

t,' indeed!... Go