"I don't feel as if I knew who I was," said Imogen, looking up at Major Winchester somewhat wistfully one day, about ten days after her arrival at The Fells, when a long rehearsal had tried everybody's patience and good-humour to the utmost. "I don't think I am the least good at acting, and yet I feel as if I weren't myself. I seem more than half `Valesca.' Yet I shall _never_ be able to do it the way Mr Villars tells me." "He is rather inexorable, certainly," Rex agreed; "but then he wouldn't be fit to be stage-manager if he were not. I think you will do very well, quite well enough." He did not add the truth--that though she was quite without dramatic power of the mildest kind, she _looked_ the part so charmingly that no one would be inclined to be critical. "That is faint praise," said Imogen with one of her little pouts. "Of course I know it is a most unimportant character; still I would like to manage it decently well. How capitally Trixie and Miss Forsyth act, Major Winchester!" He glanced at her sharply. "Then I hope no one I care for will ever act capitally," he said. Imogen reddened. "You are very severe on them," she said. "I don't mind what you think of Miss Forsyth, for I don't like her; but I am, sometimes, at least"-- and here, for some unexplained reason, she grew still redder--"very fond of Trixie. She is very kind to me generally;" for candour compelled her to qualify the statement. Trixie not being so case-hardened in diplomacy as her ally, was not always able to keep her temper or to hide her growing jealousy of Imogen's universally acknowledged beauty. "And I think she would like to be more--more like what your sister must have been. I think you can scarcely judge of Trixie, Major Winchester. She shows to disadvantage to you because she is so frightened of you." Rex laughed; he could not help it. "My dear child, you really must not be so desperately confiding," he said. "Trixie is frightened of no one--man or woman." But Imogen's advocacy touched him and increased his favourable opinion of her character. An opinion to a great extent deserved, for below some superficial selfishness and vanity, there was in her real sweetness and generosity--material, in wise hands, for much good. The generosity in this instance was conspicuous, for Rex had himself been witness to some far from amiable conduct on Beatrix's part towards the young guest. "How is it," he went on, "that you seem to see so little of Florence?" "I don't know," Imogen replied. "I have tried to make friends with her, because I knew you wished it," she added naively. "But I'm afraid she does not care for me. And she is always so busy. I think she does a great deal to help her mother." "Yes, Florrie's a good girl," said he approvingly. "I wish you could know her better." It was as Imogen said. Florence did not care for her. Yet, when taxed by her cousin with her disregard of his _protegee_, it was difficult to prove her to blame.