"And what then, Miss Queenie?" "Then I must be brave, and buckle on my golden harness. Don't be afraid, dear old friend, I do not mean to shrink from my responsibilities; I would not if they were really and truly to crush me," with a smile, followed by a sigh. "I only want to have time to get used to the thought. I must teach and fit myself to be a rich woman before I am one. Now you must promise to keep my secret, you and Molly, and Mr. Duncan. No one knows me; no one need concern themselves about my business. I was Miss Titheridge's under-teacher, and now I am the school-mistress at Hepshaw." "But, Miss Queenie--" "Caleb, you must promise me. Hush," kneeling down before him, and bringing her bright face on a level with his; "I will not hear another word. It is a whim, dear; just Queenie's whim, and that is all." "I saw it was a bit of girl's nonsense, but I couldn't gainsay her coaxing ways," as Caleb said to Mr. Duncan afterwards. "She always had a will of her own, had Miss Queenie; but in the main she is right and sensible, and has an old head on young shoulders. It is just a sort of play-acting. She has set her heart on this school and cottage of hers, and nothing will do for her but to go back to it." "Marie Antoinette at Trianon! I have a notion that there is more in this than meets the eye," argued the lawyer shrewdly, with a shrug of his shoulders. "Well, well, Mr. Runciman, it is none of our business; the girl is absolute mistress of her own fortune. Morton and I are only joint executors, and bound to see things are right and fair; she might spend it all on that charity school of hers, and we should have no right to interfere." "But, all the same, it is a bit of pure nonsense," returned Caleb, distrustful for the first time of his favorite's good sense. "Don't trouble your head about it, Runciman," was the good-humored reply; "the best of women have their crazy fits sometimes. Mark my words, before six months are over she will have changed her tune. Either the truth will have leaked out, or she will be impatient to try her heiress-ship; there's no knowing what will happen. She has asked me for fifty pounds; in another month it will be a hundred. Bless you, when her fingers have got used to the feel of bank-notes they will slip through them pretty readily." Queenie had got her way, but she found it somewhat difficult to pacify her old friend. She had just been out to buy some simple unexpensive mourning for herself and Emmie, and was standing by the table fingering the stuffs as he entered. "Silk and crape, that is what you ought to have worn, Miss Queenie," grumbled Caleb, with a dissatisfied face; but the girl only shook her head. "Crape is such dusty, inconvenient wear in the country, and Emmie is such a child," she returned; "these simple stuffs will be far more suitable. Fancy my wearing silk dresses in that little old barn of a school-room, or in our tiny cottage!"