"I didn't know it was you two who have been so kind to Eric. I should like to explain about him, and then you'll understand. My eldest brother married very much beneath him. He died when Eric was a year old, and his wife married again--a man in her own station, who is now keeping the 'Royal George'. I can't bear to think of Eric being brought up in such surroundings, but I have no power to take him away; his mother and step-father claim him. I had planned that when he is a little older I would try to persuade them to let me send him to a good preparatory school, but now"--her voice broke--"it is not a question of education, but whether he will grow up at all. I am writing for a specialist to come and see him next week. I won't give up hope. He's the only boy left in our family. Both my other brothers were killed at the beginning of the war." She paused for a moment, and then went on. "I'm sure you'll understand that I did not want anybody at Brackenfield to know that my relations live at a village inn. I have not spoken of it to Mrs. Morrison. May I ask you both to keep my secret and not to mention the matter at school?" "We won't tell a soul, Miss Norton," the girls assured her. "Thank you both for your kindness to Eric," continued the house mistress. "You have made his little life very bright lately. I need hardly tell you how dear he is to me." "He's the most perfect darling we've ever met," said Dona. After that they walked on again without speaking. All three were busy with their own thoughts. Marjorie's brain was in a whirl. She was trying to readjust her mental attitude. Miss Norton! Miss Norton, whom she had mistrusted and suspected as a spy, was Eric's idolized aunt, and had gone to the Royal George on no treacherous errand, but to tell fairy tales to an invalid child! When the cold scholastic manner was dropped she had caught a glimpse of a beautiful and tender side of the mistress's nature. She would never forget Miss Norton's face as she held the little fellow in her arms and kissed him good-bye. "I'm afraid I've utterly misjudged her!" decided Marjorie. "I see now why she was so upset about that lantern slide I took. It was because Eric was in it. It had nothing to do with the German prisoners. After all, anybody can receive foreign letters if they've relations abroad, and perhaps she's going to stay with friends in the Isle of Wight. As for those Belgians in the hotel, perhaps they were genuine ones. We had Belgian guests ourselves at the beginning of the war, and couldn't understand a word of the Flemish they talked." Marjorie ran upstairs to her dormitory as soon as she reached St. Elgiva's, and found Chrissie waiting for her there. "Where's the uniform?" demanded her chum imperatively. "The uniform? I didn't get it after all," replied Marjorie a little vaguely. The unexpected episode of Eric and Miss Norton had temporarily driven the former matter from her mind. "You--didn't--get it?"