"They do not go in until Tuesday; we shall keep them until then," returned Garth, stroking the pony's neck absently. Dora was looking prettier than ever this morning, he thought. She wore a hat with a long, white curling feather; the golden hair shone under it; she patted it nonchalantly with her little gloved hand as she talked. Emmie interrupted them presently. "School is over! there are the girls coming out. Prissy is last, of course. Ah! there is Queenie!" and she darted across the road, and almost threw herself on her sister. Queenie did not quicken her steps when she saw them. She came up a little reluctantly when she recognized the occupant of the pony-carriage. Dora greeted her with her usual good-humor. "Ah, there you are, Miss Marriott! how cool you look in that nice, broad-brimmed hat. But I am sorry to see you in black. You have lost a friend, Mr. Clayton tells me. Well, I told you that I should call and have a chat about the school and all manner of things. Will you jump in and let me drive you up the lane. Langley has promised me some luncheon." "Emmie and I will be at the house as soon as you," returned Queenie, taking the child's hand and walking on swiftly. Miss Cunningham meant to be kind, she was sure of that; why was it that her manner always irritated her? There was a flavor of patronage in it that galled her sensitiveness. "Perhaps if she knew I had five thousand a-year she might change her tone," thought Queenie, a little wrathfully. "I never find it difficult to get on with people; and yet in my heart I cannot like her. Why will she make it her business to poach on other people's manor? The Hepshaw school is my affair, and has nothing to do with Crossbill Vicarage." Miss Cunningham seemed to think otherwise. She cross-examined Queenie all through luncheon on a hundred petty details. Queenie, to her surprise, found she was acquainted with many of the girls' names and histories. She put the new mistress right on one or two points with much shrewdness and cleverness. She could talk, and talk well, on most subjects. By-and-bye, when the school was exhausted, she turned to Garth, and argued quite a knotty point of politics with him, elucidating her view with a clear-headedness and force of words that surprised her feminine hearers. Garth had much ado to hold his own against her, but the consciousness of being in the right gave him the advantage. "Now, Miss Dora, I think you must yield this once," he said, looking at her triumphantly. Dora measured him with her glance before she answered. "I never yield to papa, but I suppose I must to you," she said in the quietest manner possible, and there was a slight stress on the last word that made Garth redden as though he had received an unexpected concession.