"The children are quite mad about you, Miss Graniger," she said, "and they have been entreating me to let you stay with them. I wish you would! I am so tired of having ignorant and unsympathetic people about them. Agnes was telling me this morning that you would like to be with children. Why shouldn't you be with mine?" Caroline did not find it very easy to speak. Mrs. Lancing's manner charmed and yet startled her; it was so new, too, and so pleasant to be addressed in this semi-familiar, easy fashion. When she found her voice it was to make a protest. "I do love children," she said, "and it would be a great happiness to me to be with yours.... But you don't know anything about me. I am sure you would want some one cleverer and better than I am, and then"--Caroline paused an instant.... "Mrs. Baynhurst is sure to give me a very bad character," she added hurriedly. Camilla snapped her fingers. "I am not going to trouble about Mrs. Baynhurst," she said. "Everybody knows that she is a crank. Look here, we'll settle all sorts of things afterwards. Now I must go upstairs, or I shall have my dear sister-in-law crawling down to see what I am doing. Betty will come down to lunch," Camilla added, "and it would be so sweet of you if you would just keep an eye on her; she shall sit next to you. Would you like to go up to the nursery and come down with her?"--this was suggested with the air of one who has a sudden and happy inspiration. "You can leave your hat and coat in my bedroom." Caroline followed Mrs. Lancing up the stairs. She was fascinated into compliance. Camilla's pretty ways won her heart very much as the children had won it. There was something magnetic in the sympathy that pervaded her. Caroline felt bewildered, and moved, and excited, but only in a pleasurable sense. When they reached the drawing-room door, Mrs. Lancing smiled and whispered. "My room is on the floor above this," she said, "and the nursery is above that again. Do, like a dear, see that Betty has her hair done, and that her face and hands are washed. Her aunt always examines her as if she were a curious insect or a mineral specimen. Babsy will have her dinner with Dennis, and come down later." Camilla gave a little sigh of contentment as Caroline Graniger passed up the stairs, and she glanced at herself in a long mirror that was placed at a convenient angle to make the staircase seem bigger. Her appearance satisfied her. Dennis had picked out the oldest gown she possessed, and she had carefully denuded herself of all the little jewelry that she was accustomed to wear. But a shabby gown could not dim the real radiance of her beauty. Mrs. Horace Lancing was sitting bolt upright by the fire, talking to Agnes Brenton; she was rather plump, with masses of yellowish hair, had short-sighted eyes, and a dull white skin. She always used long, blue-tinted glasses, and turned them on Camilla now.