Mildred fairly jumped with astonishment. "Afraid? Of what? I beg your pardon--I don't understand--" "Your hair, my dear!--so much of it. They say, you know, that it saps the strength. A young friend of mine had hair just like yours--you remind me very much of her--and she died! Consumption, they called it. The doctors said all her strength went into her hair!" Mildred laughed merrily. "Oh, well! it's quite different with me, I have plenty of strength left over for myself. I am as strong as a horse, and have hardly been ill a day in my life." "Dear! Dear!" ejaculated the old lady. "And with that complexion too-- pink and white. Now I should have been afraid--" She fell to shaking her head in lugubrious fashion, and watched the girl's movements with anxious scrutiny. "Do you think you are quite wise to sit next the window, love?" she asked presently. "You look a little flushed, and there is always a draught. Won't you come over and sit by me? Just as you like, of course; but I assure you you can't be too careful. I noticed that you cleared your throat just now. Ah, that's just what a young friend of mine used to say, `It's only a little tickling in my throat,' but it grew worse and worse, my dear, till the doctors could do nothing for her. I am always nervous about colds--" "She has been very unfortunate in her `young friends'!" commented Mildred to herself, but she made no reply, and the old lady waited fully two minutes before venturing another remark. "Your--er--aunt seems a very sweet creature, my dear! You must be sorry to part from her." "I am. Very! But she is not my aunt." "You don't say so! Not a sister, surely? I never should have thought it--" "She is not a sister either." (Now, what in the world can it matter to her whether we are relations or not! I suppose I had better tell her, or she will be suggesting `mother' next). "She is one of the school-mistresses. I am just leaving school." The old lady appeared overwhelmed by this intelligence. Her placid expression vanished, her forehead became fretted with lines, and she looked so distressed that it was all Mildred could do to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter. "A boarding-school! Oh, my dear!" she cried. Then in a tone of breathless eagerness, "Now tell me--quite in confidence, you know, absolutely in confidence,--do they give you enough to eat? Oh, my love, I could tell you such stories--the saddest experiences--" "Dear young friends of her own, starved to death! I know," said Mildred to herself, and she broke in hastily upon the reminiscences, to give such glowing accounts of the management of Milvern House as made the old lady open her eyes in astonishment. "Four courses for dinner, and a second helping whenever you like. Now really, my dear, you must write down the address of that school for me. I have so many young friends. And have you any idea of the terms?"