"Hold your tongue, you pert, ill-natured thing," I said; "I don't believe that she will be sent away." "She will, though," said Celia; "you see if she isn't. But we don't want you to tell us anything--we know all about it, don't we, girls?" "Know all about what?" I said, very coolly and contemptuously--for they all seemed quite girlish and childish to me, now that I was the repository of all that secrecy. "Why all about _it_" said Celia--"about Ann, and some one at the window. Molly told me, and ever so much more that she heard from Ann before she went; and Ann was going to tell her something about some one in the garden--Clara Fitzy, or some one else--only she had not time before they bundled her off. But, there: I sha'n't tell you any more." My ears tingled, as they say, when I heard that latter part about the garden. What an escape it seemed, to be sure! But I passed it all off, and took not a mite of notice; and just then, who should come in but Miss Furness, as I heard a well-known step go crunching along the gravel. Then it was lessons, lessons, till dinner-time; and lessons, lessons, till tea-time; and then lessons again, for the weather was too wet for a walk. I only saw Clara of a night after that, and, poor thing, she was kept upon prison fare; for a letter came down from Lady Fitzacre, saying that she was too ill to travel at present, and that she left the punishment of the foolish, disobedient child entirely in the hands of Mrs Blunt. So there wasn't a word said more about expelling her, for Mrs B. was too fond of the high terms and extras she was able to charge for parlour boarders. But they kept the poor thing a close prisoner upstairs for a week; and, to make her position more bearable, I bought her a cheap edition of "Moths," and smuggled it up. Then I managed "In Maremma;" and whenever I went out, and could get to the pastrycook's, I filled my pockets full of queen cakes, and sausage rolls, and raspberry jam tarts, and got the inside of my pocket of my silk dress in such a sticky mess, that I declare every time I put my hand in, it made me think of the poor Signor. Of course, I told Clara everything that happened downstairs as soon as Patty was asleep, though she frightened me terribly by almost going into hysterics the first night, when I told her about the Signor being in the store-room; but I did not mention the jam then, for fear of hurting her feelings. She said I did quite right about the note; for she could never have been happy again if the Signor had killed Achille--just as if Achille was not a deal more likely to have killed the Signor!