“Oh, you may talk,” Sarah cast a desperate upward glance at the kindling face: “you that’s so handsome! Little you know what it is to feel plain. ’Tis as I have told you, I couldn’t, aye--that’s the word!--face it. And so I slipped from him, even as all the assembly was summoned to the supper-room, and hid myself. And oh,” cried Sarah, between laughing and crying, “when Mamma found me at last, sitting with the maids among the cloaks, she was very angry first. ‘And where have you been?’ cries she. ‘The Duchess and Mr. W. have been looking for you everywhere. Mr. Walsingham’s mad after you, child,’ and oh,” here Sarah sobbed, “she was most angry because she thought he had liked me too much. And when I told her he took me for sister, ‘why,’ said she, ‘put on your mask this minute, Miss. And I forbid you ever to let on that you took Jane’s place. He has told the Duchess that you’re the most intelligent young woman, that your mind and your principles are all he could desire--believing you to be Jane of course. Things could not be better! His intentions are most serious!’ And now,” cried Sarah, drying her eyes desperately, “Sister’s had her tooth out this morning, and the apothecary says in a week there’ll be nothing to show for it. And though there’s been a message from the Duchess to say Mr. W. wished to call to-day, Mamma has wrote back that Jane has taken a cold at the masked ball and must keep her room for a few days. But oh, Pamela, when he comes and looks upon her--why, you can guess how it will be!” “’Tis a monstrous shame,” the partisan exclaimed. “I wouldn’t put up with it, Miss. And all the time ’tis yourself he’ll think he’s getting. You ought to up and tell him straight and let him make his choice.” But Sarah, pulling on her shabby gloves and drawing her hat over her red eyes, shook her head. “I couldn’t do that,” said she. “Mamma says if I breathe a word ’twill be the basest treachery to sister. And she’ll keep me out of the way,” she added under her breath. The girl then flung her arms round the milliner’s neck. Sarah was indeed lacking in propriety. “I’ll send back your head. ’Tis as fresh as ever. And thank you a million times. At least I’ve had a peep into happiness.” It was quite ten days later when Pamela Pounce received an urgent message from Miss Vibart to come and see her after closing hours. “_Mamma and Jane are going out and I shall be quite alone. Do come, I have something so strange to tell you._” Miss Pounce did not need to be bidden twice to such an appointment. Her warm heart had been considerably preoccupied on the subject of the plain Miss Vibart’s affairs. She was shown in, not to the fireless dark slit of a room overlooking the shaft, but to quite a comfortable small bedroom on the street. Sarah, in an elegant white muslin wrapper, sprang up from her writing-table to embrace her friend.