But it was not all to be quite plain sailing. Mildred had not disclosed the project to her aunt yet. Truth was, she shrunk from the task, foreseeing the opposition that would inevitably ensue. But it must no longer be delayed, for she was to depart for London that day week, and she went straight to Mrs. Arkells. As she had expected, Mrs. Arkell met the news with extreme astonishment and anger. "Do you know what you are doing, child! Don't talk to me about being a burden upon Peter! You----" "Aunt, hear me!" she implored: and be it observed, that to Mrs. Arkell, Mildred put not forth one word of that convenient plea of "seeing the world," that she had filled Peter with. To Mrs. Arkell she urged another phase of the reasoning, and one, in truth, which had no slight weight with herself--Peter's interests. "I ought not to be a burden upon Peter, aunt, and I will not. You know how his heart is set upon going to the university; but he cannot get there if he does not save for it? If I remain at home, the house must be kept up the same as now; the housekeeping expenses must go on; and it will take every shilling of Peter's earnings to do all this. Aunt, I could not live upon him, for very shame. While my mother was here it was a different thing." "But--to go to Peter's own affairs for a moment," cried Mrs. Arkell, irascibly--"what great difference will your going away make to his expenses? Twenty pounds a year at most. Where's the use of your putting a false colouring on things to me?" "I have not done so, aunt. Peter and I have talked these matters over since I resolved to go out, and I believe he intends to let his house." "To let his house!" "It is large for him now; large and lonely. He means to let it, if he can, furnished; just as it is." "And take up his abode in the street?" "He will easily find apartments for himself," said Mildred, feeling for and excusing Mrs. Arkell's unusual irritability. "And, aunt, don't you see what a great advantage this would be to him in his plans? Saving a great part of what he earns, receiving money for his house besides, he will soon get together enough to take him to college." "I don't see anything, except that this notion of going away, which you have taken up, is a very wrong one. It cannot be permitted, Mildred." "Oh! aunt, don't say so," she entreated. "Peter must put by." "Let him put by; it is what he ought to do. And you, Mildred, must come to us. Be a daughter to me and to your uncle in our old age. Since William left it, the house is not the same, and we are lonely. We once thought--you will not mind my saying it now--that you would indeed have been a daughter to us, and in that case William's home and yours would have been here. He should never have left us." "Aunt----"