"Yes, I'll be with you for the first week. They could come early next week, and I am not going away until the week after."

"Oh! don't talk about it; it is too horrible. Let us come into the fields and talk about ourselves."

The two girls did walk together, and it was Irene's turn to tell Rosamund some of the wild and fanciful fairy-tales which she was always making up. But she could never be still very long, and in the midst of her most earnest and fascinating stories she would rush from one end of the field to the other, or turn a somersault, or climb a tree and look down at Rosamund with her laughing, mocking face from the midst of the branches. But then again she would be good, and come back and say that the wicked little living thing inside her was quiet for the time being.

"I wonder if it will ever go away?" she said. "If it were gone I'd be much like other girls; but as long as it is there I can't be like any girl--I can't."

"There is such a thing as praying to G.o.d to take it away. But perhaps it is never meant to go," said Rosamund.

"What do you mean by that?"

"Perhaps it is a very beautiful gift that G.o.d has given you--something that you can't quite control at present, but something which will make you by-and-by different from others: more earnest, more enthusiastic, more full of spirit, more full of zeal. You have set your face steadily towards everything that has been naughty. You don't know yourself. Just tell that thing, as you call it, inside you that you are going up, not down, in future, and see if it won't behave itself and help you all the time."

"I wonder if it will?" said Irene. "It is a good thought."

CHAPTER XVIII.

FROSTY'S DARLINGS.

Miss Frost's alarm, surprise, and delight when Rosamund had an earnest talk with her on the following morning can be better imagined than described.

"Of course, you can understand," she said, "that nothing would give me greater pleasure than having the darlings here with me; but how am I to trust Irene? Agnes is rather a timid little thing. Hughie is brave enough. I should not be afraid of him. He is fourteen; Agnes is only eleven. I am so afraid that Agnes, who has a little bit of me in her nature, will succ.u.mb utterly and show Irene that she is afraid of her.

Then all would be lost."

"Nothing will be lost," replied Rosamund. "It is the very best plan possible. You must make Irene the guardian of Agnes from the very first.

You must make her take that position with her; it is the only thing to do. The mistake has been that people were terrified of her. Her character, which is really very fine, has been spoiled by such a course.

Give her a little tender thing to love, and make her guard that creature, and she will fight for her to the very death. I do believe it.

Trust me, I have studied her character so carefully."

"I do indeed trust you, dear," replied Miss Frost, with tears in her eyes. "Well, then, if Lady Jane approves"----

Of course Lady Jane approved. She said at once that she did not wish to leave The Follies.

"I like to go away sometimes in November," she said, "or at the end of October, when the leaves are falling. But I love my own beautiful home in the summer weather best of all places on earth, and I am afraid of taking Irene to fashionable places. I tried her once at the seaside for a week; but her conduct was scandalous, and I was forced to bring her home at a minute's notice. I needn't repeat what she did; but she really was unbearable to every one in the house. Of course, Miss Frost, if your little brother and sister can be happy here, I shall be delighted to receive them."

"Then I will write this very day," said Miss Frost; and Rosamund took care that she kept her word.

In consequence, just as the holidays at the Merrimans' began, on the very day that Mrs. Merriman walked all the way to The Follies in order to see Rosamund, the little Frosts also made their appearance on the scene.

Mrs. Merriman came an hour before the children. She was dressed in her usual prim and proper style, and Rosamund could not help owning to a distasteful feeling when she saw her. She and Irene were walking about in a considerable state of excitement. Irene had been planning every hour of the day for her visitors.

"You know I have never had visitors before," she said. "I don't exactly count you as a visitor. You are dearer to me than I am to myself. You are all the world to me; but these are visitors. If I could only forget that they belonged to Frosty all would be well."

"But you must on no account forget it. You must think of Frosty's pleasure as well as your own. You know you have promised--yes, you have promised me, you who don't tell lies--to go up, not down, in future. Oh, there is Mrs. Merriman! I must run and speak to her."

"That prim, dumpling sort of woman? Oh, all right, go; but don't stay long with her. I want you. I am beginning to count the minutes now. I feel so terribly anxious at your leaving me."

Rosamund almost wished that she were not obliged to leave The Follies at this juncture; but her own father and mother would not hear of her staying away from them. She accordingly left Irene on the present occasion, and walked across the lawn to meet Mrs. Merriman.

Mrs. Merriman paused when she saw her.

"How do you do, Rosamund?" she said. She spoke coldly, and did not hold out her hand.

Rosamund replied in as prim a voice as the little lady had used:

"How do you do, Mrs. Merriman? I hope you are all quite well at the school. How was Jane when you heard from her last?"

"Almost quite well, I am glad to say. She will be able to return to her lessons in the middle of September. I have something to say to you, Rosamund, and as we have met here in the avenue, I need not go up to the house."

"Just as you like about that," said Rosamund. "Wouldn't you like to have a cup of tea? I am sure Lady Jane would be pleased to see you. Are you not tired? The walk is a somewhat long one."

"I am never tired," replied Mrs. Merriman. "If my dear husband, my beloved Professor, had even half my strength, we should not be obliged to keep a school full of troublesome girls at all."

"Indeed! are the others troublesome?" asked Rosamund, her eyes sparkling.

"I cannot say that they are particularly troublesome now that you are away."

Rosamund lowered her lids, but her eyes danced. She looked on the ground.

"If I am to go back to the school next term, and take Irene with me, I don't know how I shall bear it," she said to herself.

Mrs. Merriman, however, was nothing if not to the point.

"My dear," she said slowly, "it is my husband's lot and mine to have to earn money in a way which is in no way congenial to either of us."

"But you are always so kind! You never gave any trouble of any sort,"

was Rosamund's response. "You seemed to understand us in a sort of fashion. It was--Lucy!" she added with a burst.

"Lucy is my darling, beloved, and only child. You must not say a word against her. I cannot stand it."

"Very well, I will try not to; but you know she does not like me."

"She certainly doesn't; but has she any reason for liking you, Rosamund?"

"Perhaps she has not; that is quite probable. I know I was not particularly good when I was at Sunnyside."

"And do you think you are particularly good now?"

"I do not. Perhaps I see my faults more plainly than ever. But I have helped Irene, and Irene is worth helping."

"I hardly dare to think of what I have come about to-day; but the Professor has sent me. He has received a letter from your mother, and he has also seen Mr. Singleton, and Mr. Singleton has suggested an extraordinary thing. He wants both you and Irene--yes, the dreaded, the feared Irene--to come to our beautiful house for next term. You were practically expelled from the school; but he wants you to come back again, and the Professor has sent me to say that he is willing to receive you both, on condition that you will not disturb the peace of the house."

"As far as I am concerned, I will not disturb it; but I cannot answer for Irene."