scoffs and innuendoes.

The girl was transformed. Her new gowns, hats, aprons, and what not sent
her into high spirits and she bade her mother adieu with a light heart.

"Go your own way, you ungrateful minx," was Mrs. Fenton's parting shot,
"and when you're tired of your fine gentleman or he's tired of you,
don't think you're coming back here 'cause I won't have you."

Lavinia smiled triumphantly and tripped into the hackney coach that was
awaiting her.




CHAPTER III

"OH, MISTRESS MINE, WHERE ART THOU ROAMING?"


"Lavina! Have done!"

It was a whispered entreaty. The victim of the feather of a quill pen
tickling her neck dared not raise her voice. Miss Pinwell, the
proprietress of the extremely genteel seminary for young ladies, Queen
Square--quite an aristocratic retreat some two hundred years ago--was
pacing the school-room. Her cold, sharp eyes roamed over the shapely
heads--black, golden, brown, auburn, flaxen--of some thirty girls--eager
to detect any sign of levity and prompt to inflict summary punishment.