It seemed useless to protest; the more Aldred tried to shuffle out of her rôle of heroine the more Mabel admired her modesty and her other imagined excellencies. Mabel was a girl who loved to idolize celebrities; it was partly a necessity of her nature, and partly a habit that had been cultivated at home by her mother, who had a kindred weakness. Before the two girls knew each other, Mabel had been obliged to confine her worship to book favourites; then, having met, as she thought, the realization of her ideal, she could not resist the temptation to endow her with the combined virtues of Portia, Rebecca, Ellen Douglas, Grace Darling, Flora Macdonald, and the "Nut-brown Maid", without stopping to put the various qualities to the test, and make sure that they actually existed. It is always better to err on the right side, and think too highly than too ill of people, but Mabel's mistake was to take Aldred so utterly on trust, and to blind herself wilfully to the many small indications of character that might easily have shown her that her idol was very far from perfection. Aldred could not feel easy until she had made sure that the snapshot portrait was not to be included in the next number of the Magazine. She was afraid Mabel might break her promise, and send a copy surreptitiously to her cousin, and then the mischief would be done. She did not dare to mention the matter at head-quarters; it would appear conceited on her part to suggest that the idea had been broached, and she would feel very humiliated if Miss Drummond were to say: "Oh, no, my dear! I never dreamt of putting it in!" A plan occurred to her, however, by which she could defeat her friend's too enthusiastic project. She borrowed the negative from Dora on the pretence of wanting to look at it, and in handing it back managed to drop it and step on it, breaking it beyond all chance of repair. She apologized profusely for the accident. "It was most clumsy of me!" she declared. "Could we possibly patch it up again, do you think?" "No, we couldn't!" said the aggrieved Dora. "It would show a mark right across the face, however carefully we joined it. I've tried piecing negatives together before, and they're not worth the trouble of printing." "Well, it was only a picture of me, not the lovely one you took of Miss Drummond and Mademoiselle." "No; I'm glad it was not that. But I promised this to Mabel; she asked me last night if I could find it, and I've had such a hunt through all my negatives! She'll be quite cross that it's broken." "You must put the blame on me, then, for it was my fault." Secretly Aldred was exultant.