"I ain't fit for all your grand friends, I reckon," she cried, while she clenched her hands together in the anguish of her discovery, "and you're going to throw me over just as you throw them weeds into the basket. That's what I call bein' a fine friend. You that promised I'd be your sister! I ain't good enough or grand enough. Well, I ain't surprised," she added with a sob, "that's what I've done to Jem, and it's all through your fine promises. If it hadn't been for you I say, I should be happy sleepin' under the stars; you've been my undoin', and I won't thank you," then with a sob Meg turned and fled, leaving Sheila rooted to the spot with astonishment. Meg did not come home for lunch. Miss Gregson's heart sank. "Do you know where Meg is?" she asked. "No. I had to speak sharply to her this morning and I suppose she is sulking. There is something of the lion in that girl. Do you know, Angel, that she has a most violent temper? I've done the deed," added Sheila with a faint smile. "You mustn't blame me. I really can't stand her any longer." "Do you mean you have told her to go?" Miss Gregson folded up her dinner napkin as she spoke and avoided Sheila's eyes. She was afraid lest her own should express too truthfully the feeling the news had aroused in her. "Yes. But I've given her a month, in which to make her plans. But after the wild manner in which she turned upon me I shall shorten the time to a week. She isn't safe to have about the house. Now, Angel, why don't you let out, I'm quite expecting an explosion from you." But Miss Gregson did not rise to the occasion. Neither did she smile. "How do you think the child is to live?" she asked quietly. "I'm quite happy about that. No one can accuse me of sending her out into the world unprepared. Even you must acknowledge after hearing her sing at the concert, that I have fitted her for her future work. She will be able to give singing lessons, and of course I shall make her a present of money before she leaves." Miss Gregson was silent. Sheila laughed. "I see you disapprove of me utterly. I'm a wretch, you think." Then her companion put on her spectacles and faced her. "I must tell you the truth at all costs," she said quietly, "and that is that I cannot think how anyone calling herself a Christian could possibly do such a cruel thing as you contemplate doing. It would have been far better to have left her as you found her, to have sent her to the hospital when she was taken ill on your doorstep, and when she recovered to have tried to set her up in some good business. But to take the poor girl out of her proper station of life, to shower gifts upon her, to teach her to grow dependent on comforts and luxuries—quite unnecessary luxuries—and then to cast her adrift is to my mind the most un-Christian cruel thing you could possibly do." "But then I don't profess to be a Christian, you see," said Sheila.