Mrs. LeGrand said that she had thought she heard the carriage wheels. Mr. Pollock, the music-master, said, No; it was the wind down the avenue. Mrs. LeGrand, pleasantly, just condescending enough and not too condescending, glanced from one to the other of the group. "M. Morel and Mr. Pollock and you, Miss Carlisle and Miss Bedford, will, I hope, take supper with our guest and me? Sylvie, here, will keep her usual place. I can't do without Sylvie. She spoils me and I spoil her! And we will have besides, I think, the girl that has stood highest this month in her classes. Who will it be, Miss Gage?" "Hagar Ashendyne, Mrs. LeGrand." Mrs. LeGrand had a humorous smile. "Then, Sylvie, see that Hagar's dress is all right and try to get her to do her hair differently. I like Eglantine girls to look their birth and place." "Dear Cousin Olivia," said Sylvie, who was extremely pretty, "for all her plainness, Hagar's got distinction." But Mrs. LeGrand shrugged her shoulders. She couldn't see it. A little wind arising, all the place became a whirl of coloured leaves. And now the carriage wheels were surely heard. Half an hour later Sylvie went up to Hagar's room. It was what was called the "tower room"--small and high up--too small for anything but a single bed and one inmate. It wasn't a popular room with the Eglantine girls--a room without a roommate was bad enough, and then, when it was upon another floor, quite away from every one--! Language failed. But Hagar Ashendyne liked it, and it had been hers for three years. She had been at Eglantine for three years, going home to Gilead Balm each summer. She was eighteen--old for her age, and young for her age. Sylvie found her curled in the window-seat, and spoke twice before she made her hear. "Hagar! come back to earth!" Hagar unfolded her long limbs and pushed her hair away from her eyes. "I was travelling," she said. "I was crossing the Desert of Sahara with a caravan." "You are," remarked Sylvie, "too funny for words!--You and I are to take supper with 'Roger Michael'!" A red came into Hagar's cheek. "Are we? Did Mrs. LeGrand say so?" "Yes--" Hagar lit the lamp. "'Roger Michael'--'Roger Michael'--Sylvie, wouldn't you rather use your own name if you wrote?" "Oh, I don't know!" answered Sylvie vaguely. "What dress are you going to wear?" "I haven't any but the green." "Then wear your deep lace collar with it. Cousin Olivia wants you to look as nice as possible. Don't you want me to do your hair?" Hagar placed the lamp upon the wooden slab of a small, old-time dressing-table. That done, she stood and looked at herself with a curious, wistful puckering of the lips. "Sylvie, prinking and fixing up doesn't suit me." "Don't you like people to like you?" "Yes, I do. I like it so much it must be a sin. Only not very many people do.... And I don't think prinking helps." "Yes, it does. If you look pretty, how can people help liking you? It's three fourths the battle."