"Oh, you are mistaken, as G.o.d hears me, I was not in that house nor on that side of the street," and she almost gasped for breath.

"You may go to your room. You will be excused from study hour tonight.

We must consider. I am glad it is so near closing time."

Lilian felt like one dazed. Yet she was pa.s.sionately indignant when she had reached her room. There might be other blue Tams in the town but she did not remember to have seen many in light blue except Miss Arnold's.

Somehow, Mrs. Dane had never taken to her cordially like Miss Arran and the teachers.

Mrs. Barrington was much distressed. She had become warmly interested in Lilian. She had smiled a little over Mrs. Dane's strictures.

"There's something about her, a sort of loftiness that doesn't belong to her life, though she takes things with outward calmness, but I have a feeling that some day she will break out in an awful tempest, and I doubt her being that woman's daughter. Mrs. Boyd never talks frankly about her," Mrs. Dane said, severely.

"But she is devoted to the poor mother."

"Well, it seems so," rather reluctantly.

After dinner Mrs. Barrington summoned Miss Arran and laid the matter before her. She listened with a kind of terrified interest.

"I can't believe Miss Boyd would tell such a dreadful falsehood, when she saw the necessity of the truth. Mrs. Dane has very strong prejudices. That Nevins girl is about her size and has a long braid of fair hair."

"Oh, she was in disgrace in her room, but what a horrible thing that it should have gone on without even a physician, or any care to prevent the spread of contagion. Well--I suppose tomorrow it will be all over town.

I gave Matthew strict orders to say nothing about it tonight."

Presently Mrs. Barrington knocked at Mrs. Boyd's door. Lilian opened it.

She had been crying. Now she stretched out her hands imploringly.

"Oh, Mrs. Barrington you cannot believe I would tell you such a cruel, willful falsehood! I was not even very near that house. After all your kindness to me--"

"There, dear, I believe _you_. I know there has been some mistake. Mrs.

Dane has always been so anxious, one might say jealous for my welfare, and you see this would mean a great deal to me. You must pardon her until the truth comes out."

"Oh, thank you a thousand times," cried Lilian in broken tones, her eyes suffused with tears.

"You need not come down to the study this evening. How is your mother?"

"She is having a lovely sleep."

"Do not say anything to her, and the girls will be going away before there is any real fright. I do not antic.i.p.ate any danger with us. Be comforted. We shall hear all tomorrow."

Lilian was almost happy. She had not lost her dear friend. Under any other circ.u.mstances Lilian would have given Mrs. Barrington an unreasoning adoration. She could not define it to herself. She liked Miss Arran, but this was beyond a mere kindly liking.

"She believes in me, she believes in me," and the girl poured the fragrant balm on her wounded heart. But there seemed an awful undefined fear.

CHAPTER VII

A SUPREME MOMENT

The girls in the study were looking furtively at one another. Was this a sort of surprise to be sprung upon them?

"Oh, Miss Marsh, do you know what this means? I can't make beginning or middle out of it. Why doesn't Miss Boyd come?"

"Yes, where is airy fairy Lilian? I think some other life she must have been a soundless ghost. You look up and she is there. Then she disappears."

"I'm glad some of the girls will have to stay through vacation," said Alice Nevins. "It will be awful poky, I wish I could go to New York and the theatre every night."

"Every other night would do for me," said Phillipa, "and here I've two French exercises to go over. One has five errors--blunders, and the other three. Madame Eustice wants to go at twelve tomorrow. Miss Vincent do take pity on me when you go to Paris. I've heard it said you can't talk it until you've studied it all over again. Oh, what's the use of so much weariness of heart and brain!"

No one came. Then in girl fashion they stirred up a sort of gale, saying funny things and making droll misquotations, or putting the wrong name to others and wondering what would be in the Christmas stockings.

"I must leave a pack behind to be darned up. I hope I'll get two boxes of new ones. Girls, you wouldn't dare offer your old ones to Miss Boyd, would you? I have some pretty ones and those plaited silk. They wear better than real silk. Mother thinks they're good enough for school."

"I don't suppose Miss Boyd has any relatives. It would be rather tough not to have _any_ gifts. Girls, oughtn't we chip in--"

"No, we ought not," replied Phil, decisively. "The maid and the laundress are the only ones I remember at Christmas. Mrs. Barrington has sensibly forbidden the giving of tips, and since we don't pretend to be friends it would be a bad precedent."

"Miss Boyd is an excellent scholar," said Miss Vincent.

"If she couldn't learn something higher she might as well stay on the lower rounds," sneered some one. "They relegate these things better in England. A housemaid's daughter is generally a housemaid."

"I think I have heard of people coming up from the ranks in favored England," was the dry rejoinder.

"Oh, let's let her alone. She'll make her way with that high head of hers. Perhaps she will be President of some college yet."

Then they went back to fun. At nine Miss Arran came in and dismissed them.

Zay was thinking how solitary the girl must be. Oh, if her mother were not the general mender! Even if she were a sort of charity scholar! And she was going to have such a splendid Christmas. Her dear, beloved mother able to get about by herself, and all the rest of their lives to be such friends, to go abroad together, to visit picture galleries, points of interest and compare notes. For Mrs. Crawford had been finely educated and even the prospect of being an invalid for life had not made her relax her hold on intellectuality. She had been a delightful friend to her boys and they were proud enough of her, but Zay would always be her supreme darling.

Some of the last exercises and conditions were marked off the next day.

Madame Eustice and two of the girls went home. A box came for Miss Nevins and the girls thronged around at her invitation while Nat drew out the nails that had fastened it securely, and lifted out a lighter box.

"That's from Madame I know, and I have frocks enough here for winter.

Oh, that's a splendid fruit cake, and nuts and that's candied orange and a box of fruit, and this is some sort of jewelry."

She tore off the wrapping eagerly. A long _lapis lazuli_ chain with a beautiful pendant and links of exquisite color, and a pair of bracelets to match.

"It's elegant," p.r.o.nounced Phillipa. "I never go crazy over it myself and it seems too old for a girl; the sort of thing for a dowager to wear on state occasions. Now, let us see the frock."

A beautiful, fine albatross cloth in itself appropriate, but betrimmed with pipings of satin and lace.

"Why it looks like a wedding gown. You'll have to save it for there will be no occasion to wear it here. Not even graduation and the lawn fete, for then we all wear simple white muslin. That is Mrs. Barrington's law."

"Oh, dear, and it is so beautiful!" on a half cry. "You see, mamma thought being a high-up school there would be parties and all that. Last winter in New York I went to three and oh, you should have seen the dresses! I had one of blue gauze over thin satin and it was just lovely, and the dancing was simply great, and here you never go any where."

"We come here to improve our minds," said some one sententiously