clean, still to be neat, under such adverse conditions; it was Nature's
royal gift that she had looked grandly beautiful in the shabbiest gowns
and mantles ever seen at Mauleverer.

She huddled her poor possessions into her solitary trunk--a battered hair
trunk which had done duty ever since she came as a child from India. She
put a few necessaries into a convenient morocco bag, which the girls in
her class had clubbed their pocket-money to present to her on her last
birthday; and then she washed the traces of angry tears from her face,
put on her hat and jacket, and went downstairs, carrying her bag and
umbrella.

One of the housemaids met her in the hall, a buxom, good-natured country
girl.

'Is it true that you are going to leave us, miss?' she asked.

'What! you all know it already?' exclaimed Ida.

'Everybody is talking about it, miss. The young ladies are all on your
side; but they dare not speak up before Miss Pew.'

'I suppose not. Yes, it is quite true; I am expelled, Eliza; sent out
into the world without a character, because I allowed Mr. Wendover to
walk and talk with the Fraeulein and me for half an hour or so in the
river-meadow! Mr. Wendover, my best, my only friend's first cousin.
Rather hard, isn't it?'

Hard? it's shameful,' cried the girl. 'I should like to see old Pew
turning me off for keeping company with my young man. But she daren't do