"Oh, Mother! This has been the most horrid day in all my life," she
said, as her mother brushed out the tangled yellow hair, and helped her
prepare for bed.

"It has been rather hard for your father and me," Mrs. Fulton reminded
her; "we began to fear some dreadful thing had happened to our little
girl. Promise me, Sylvia, never to run away from school again."

Sylvia promised. She wished she could tell her mother that it was not
school she ran away from; that she was trying to escape the taunts and
unfriendliness of her schoolmates. But she remembered her promise. She
had declared proudly that she should not tell, and hard as it was she
resolved that she would keep that promise. But she wished with all her
heart that she need not go to school another day.

"Do I have to go to Miss Patten's school, Mother?" she asked in so
unhappy a voice that Mrs. Fulton realized something unpleasant had
happened.

"We will talk it over to-morrow, dear," she said; "go to sleep now," and
Sylvia crept into the white bed quite ready to sleep, but wondering how
she could talk about going to school, and still keep her promise, when
to-morrow came.




CHAPTER V

ESTRALLA AND ELINOR