"Up, guards, and at 'em!" if I had. I'm sure I should have said something
cheeky to old Pew. The idea of overhauling your locker! I should just
like her to see the inside of mine. It would make her blood run cold.'

'Ah!' sighed Ida, 'she can't afford to make an example of you. You mean a
hundred and fifty pounds a year. I am of no more account in her eyes than
an artist's lay figure, which is put away in a dark closet when it isn't
in use. She wanted to give you girls a lesson in tidiness, so she put me
into her pillory. Fortunately I'm used to the pillory.'

'But you are looking white and worried, you dear lovely thing,' exclaimed
Bessie, who was Ida Palliser's bosom friend. 'It's too bad the way they
use you. Have this neck-ribbon,' suddenly untying the bow so carefully
elaborated five minutes ago. 'You must, you shall; I don't want it; I
hate it. Do, dear.'

And for consolation Miss Wendover tied the cherry-coloured ribbon under
her friend's collar, patted Ida's pale cheeks, and kissed and hugged her.

'Be happy, darling, do,' she said, in her loving half-childish way, while
Miss Rylance looked on with ineffable contempt. 'You are so clever and so
beautiful; you were born to be happy.'

'Do you think so, pet?' asked Ida, with cold scorn; 'then I ought to have
been born with a little more money.'

'What does money matter?' cried Bessie.

'Not very much to a girl like you, who has never known the want of it.'