"Your fun is only make-believe: there is no true ring about it. Let me see your eyes. Oh, Phil, Phil! I thought so! You have been crying, too!" Phillis looked a little taken aback. Nan was too sharp for her. She tried to shake herself free a little pettishly. "Well, if I choose to make a fool of myself for once in my life, you need not be silly about it; the old thing was so upsetting, and--and it was so hard to get it out." Phillis would not have told for worlds how utterly she had broken down over that task of hers; how the stranger's sympathy had touched so painful a chord that, before she knew what she was doing, she had laid her head down on the counter and was crying like a baby,--all the more that she had so bravely pent up her feelings all these days that she might not dishearten her sisters. But, as Nan petted and praised her, she did tell how good Miss Milner had been to her. "Fancy a fat old thing like that having such fine feelings," she said, with an attempt to recover her sprightliness. "She was as good as a mother to me,--made me sit in the easy-chair, and brought me some elder-flower water to bathe my eyes, and tried to cheer me up by saying that we should have plenty of work. She has promised not to tell any one just yet about us; but when we are really in the Friary she will speak to people and recommend us: and--" here Phillis gave a little laugh--"we are to make up a new black silk for her that her brother has just sent her. Oh, dear, what will mother say to us, Nan?" And Phillis looked at her in an alarmed, beseeching way, as though in sore need of comfort. Nan looked grave; but there was no hesitation in her answer: "I am afraid it is too late to think of that now, Phil: it has to be done, and we must just go through with it." "You are right, Nanny darling, we must just go through with it," agreed Phillis; and then they went on with their unfinished breakfast, and after that the business of the day began. It was late in the evening when they reached home. Dulce who was at the gate looking out for them, nearly smothered them with kisses. "Oh, you dear things! how glad I am to get you back," she said, holding them both. "Have you really only been away since yesterday morning? It seems a week at least." "You ridiculous child! as though we believe that! But how is mother?" "Oh, pretty well: but she will be better now you are back. Do you know," eying them both very gravely, "I think it was a wise thing of you to go away like that? it has shown me that mother and I could not do without you at all: we should have pined away in those lodgings; it has quite reconciled me to the plan," finished Dulce, in a loud whisper that reached her mother's ears.