Sometimes she would walk across to the Home and read for an hour to the blind lady, Miss Elliot, or she would do little errands in the town for one or other of the sisters. Sometimes she would carry the weekly basket of flowers that Althea always sent to Joanna. But she never thoroughly enjoyed her visits. She told Mollie that Miss Chaytor was a rather depressing sort of person. "I daresay she is good and amiable," she observed; "she must have virtues, or Miss Althea would not be so fond of her. But she looks as though she has been out too long in a bleak wind, and has got nipped and pinched. I think if she would only speak more briskly and cheerfully, that she would feel better; she wants prodding, somehow, like the old coster-monger's donkey;" and Mollie laughed at this. Waveney certainly had her good times. Althea had presented her with a beautiful racket and a pair of tennis shoes, and on Thursday afternoons she and Nora Greenwell played tennis on the new asphalt court behind the Porch House. She also joined Mr. Chaytor's Shakespeare readings; they were to get up _The Merchant of Venice_ next, and to her secret delight the part of Jessica was allotted her. Mr. Chaytor took no special notice of her; she sat amongst the other girls, and listened to his instructions. Sometimes, when Thorold had finished some masterly declamation, he would look up suddenly from his book. Waveney's little pale face and curly head were just opposite to him; the deep, _spirituelle_ eyes seemed glowing with golden light. Where was she? Not in the Recreation Hall, but on some marble steps belonging to a Doge's palace. The dark water was washing almost to her feet; gondolas were passing and repassing in the moonlight; grey-bearded men, in velvet doublets and ruffs, were standing in a group, under the deep archway; and Portia, in her satin gown, was walking with proud and stately step, followed by her train. "It is your turn, Miss Ward," observed Thorold, quietly. And then, as Waveney started and flushed, he bit his lip with an effort to suppress a smile. He knew, by a sort of intuitive sympathy, where her thoughts had strayed. Her absorbed attention pleased and flattered him; he began to feel interested in so promising a pupil. "Miss Greenwell reads better," he thought; "but I doubt if she grasps the full meaning and beauty of a passage as Miss Ward does." And on more than one evening the little pale face, and dark, vivid eyes seemed to haunt him. Strangely enough he had used Doreen's comparison. "She is like Undine," he said to himself; and somehow, the name seemed to suit her. Waveney's Sundays were always her happiest days; they were red-letter days and high festivals to her, as well as to Mollie; but each time she went home she thought Mollie looked lovelier, and on each occasion she found relics of the Black Prince.