"Oh! as to that, yes. She was very wrong. She was playing Madame Bulbat for the girls, and Madame heard her, and was in a rage of course. And Miss Robina was obliged to be very severe with the child to keep the peace. I cannot go, papa; but I daresay, if you were to ask her, Miss Pardie would let me go and see mama for a little while." But Mr Vane shook his head with sufficient decision. "No: mama is all right. You are far better at school. She does not need you." But pleased with the whispered admiration of the foolish people who were with him, and willing to prolong the pleasure, he moved away with his little daughter in the direction of the line of returning school girls, saying he must make the child's peace with her teacher; and he quite won Miss Pardie's heart by his manner of entreating it at her hands. "Was that your mama in the carriage, and your sister?" asked one of her companions, as they went on together. "I think they might have asked you to go with them." "My mama, indeed! That great red woman!" said Frederica scornfully. "She was very pretty," said her friend. "That is because she did not ask you to go with them." "She did ask me. I did not choose to go." "Because of your print dress? Of course you could not have gone in that." Thus her friend chattered on, and Frederica answered at random or not at all, thinking of other things. For it did not make her sure that her mother was well again, that her father had said so. And though it was no new thing to her knowledge that her father should seek his own pleasure, without giving a thought to her mother in her enforced retirement, it struck her with new and sharp pain to-day, and her anxious and unhappy thoughts came back again with double force. "I have a great mind to go home without asking anybody," she said to herself. But she knew she must not. She was, for the moment, very unhappy, and it was with a slow step and a sad face that she went to make her confession to Miss Robina. For though Miss Pardie had graciously accepted Mr Vane's apologies for his daughter's behaviour, that was only as far as he was concerned. She had her confession to make to Miss Robina all the same; and it is possible that Miss Pardie was not without hope that, for the moral effect of the thing, she would not be permitted to escape without punishment, or at least without reproof. She got no punishment, however, and Miss Robina's reproof was of the gentlest, when it was explained to her that "she had been so anxious to hear about mama." "And I am afraid it was not good news you heard, from the sad face I see," said Miss Robina, kissing her. "Papa said she was well, so I suppose she is at least not worse. Am I to be punished, Miss Robina? I think Miss Pardie expects it." "You mean you think you deserve it. Well, you must be sent upstairs for a while. Take these strawberries to Eppie, and save me the stairs, and you need not hasten down again."