Julie acquiesced with acclamation--and flushed with pleasure at being admitted to share a secret with the sweet, proud girl who would, she was certain, very soon be a great lady. If she had her doubts about the "poor person," and imagined, from what she knew by experience of Joan’s eccentricity--as she considered her mistress’ coldness hitherto in regard to the opposite sex--that the nocturnal escapade meant an assignation with the charming milord who intended to make a great lady of Miss Thorne--she kept it to herself. Mistress and maid carried out their plan without hindrance. Sir Thomas teased his niece a little slily about the sudden fancy for waxworks--he had, like Julie, some _arrière-pensée_ not unconnected with Vansittart--but he made no objection to the expedition. Nor did Lady Thorne, to whom, after his talk with Vansittart, he had said, after giving her some broad hints--"my dear, understand this once and for all--if we give Joan her head, and don’t interfere in the least, she will be the Viscountess Vansittart before we know where we are!" Shortly after Joan had had a solitary tea-dinner in her sitting-room upstairs--a meal she affected when she preferred not to accompany Sir Thomas and Lady Thorne to a long, dreary, dinner-party of old fogies--mistress and maid started off in a four-wheeled cab to which a man-servant pompously gave the address--"Madame Tussord’s." Julie had admired, with a French girl’s admiration, her young lady’s _savoir faire_, when she had suggested that they should actually make a tour of the exhibition and take an opportunity of slipping quietly out when others likely to absorb the door-keeper’s attention were coming in, and had readily acquiesced in the idea. They alighted at the entrance, paid their money, walked leisurely in, strolled about, apparently examining the effigies with interest then steering unostentatiously towards the door by which they had entered; they waited until a number of lively children were flocking obstreperously upstairs and had to be held in check at the turnstile, when they issued forth, and walked along the Marylebone Road. When they came to a church, Joan stopped. "Will you remember this place?" she asked. "You are sure? Then I will leave you here, and meet you again at the exact spot at eleven o’clock. If you are here first, wait until I come. On no account are you to go home alone--without me! Do you understand?" Julie’s protestations that she understood were sincere and hearty. Joan said no more, but took the bag from her--Julie had mentally commented upon its weight, and wondered who was the lucky person to be benefited by its contents--and with an easy "_au revoir_, then," was gone.