"Do you know," she continued, "it may be that I can really do something for Yvonne next year. If papa can't spare the money, why I can give up something of my own--riding lessons, for example,--and spend what it would cost for Yvonne. This year I have been so frightfully useless; it seems as if I hadn't done anything for anybody." "How foolish you are," exclaimed Priscilla. "If there were nothing else, you certainly have helped Yvonne and Esther, and just think what Mrs. Brownville writes about Herbert, and your mother says you have been a wonderful housekeeper, and that you have taken so much care off her shoulders, and Angelina--" "Well, Angelina is rather absurd," interposed Martine; "I was just coming to myself that evening after--what shall I call it--the Carlotta incident, when Angelina rushed into the room, and almost threw herself on my neck. She seemed to think that something awful had happened to me because she had undertaken to leave us, and that my salvation depended on her. She said she had had queer feelings all day, and that she just felt drawn back to Red Knoll, which she never, never, would desert again. Really it was just as well that she came back, for although mother was able to get an extra helper, Angelina knew exactly where things were. Of course she was tremendously proud of what she had accomplished in her trip to Portsmouth, for she made the house-breaker admit that he was Miguel Silva, and though she can't recover her money, she has a kind of wicked satisfaction in knowing that he will be punished for his other misdeeds." "She doesn't seem to be quite as Spanish as she was last winter. At least she doesn't say as much about it." "No, she gives me the credit for that. She says that I have shown her that it is wrong to pretend anything. However, on that same Portsmouth trip, she went down the harbor to look at the island where Cervera's men were prisoners, and now she likes to speak of the Spaniards in a patronizing tone as people to be spoken of as inferiors rather than kinsmen." "It's astonishing," mused Priscilla, "how many friends you make!" "Why should it be astonishing? Why shouldn't I make friends?" "I only meant it was astonishing in comparison with me. No one ever attaches importance to me. In the past year I have hardly made a new friend--while you--" "You have made a friend of me for one thing, and Lucian thinks you are exactly right, and my mother considers you a perfect model. Oh, yes, and there's Eunice." Priscilla, in spite of herself, smiled at Martine's droll tone. "But think of all the people you have to your credit. Mr. Stacy says he never saw a young girl talk so intelligently about Plymouth, and the children are always asking me when you will come again, and in her secret heart I believe Aunt Tilworth prefers you to me,--and my mother--"