Miss Briggs swept from the room in a flutter of agitation, and Hilary sank into the nearest chair, and gazed blankly at the fire. Her heart was beating in heavy thuds, and she put her hand to her head in stupefied fashion. For several minutes she sat motionless, unable to form any definite thought. She only felt a curious shattered sensation, as though she had come through some devastating experience, which had laid waste all her fondest delusions. _What_ had Miss Briggs said? That the household arrangements had been managed _better_ in her absence than when she was at home. That if she did not alter, she would end in being a hindrance rather than a help. That she set a bad example to the younger girls and was the instigator of quarrels!--Hilary's cheeks burnt with a flush that was almost painful. Her pride was wounded in its most sensitive point. She would have been ready enough to acknowledge that she was not so sweet-tempered as Lettice, or so clever as Norah, but she had been secure in her conviction that no one could touch her in her own department--that she was a person of supreme importance, without whom the whole fabric of the household would fall to pieces. And things had gone on _better_ while she was away! _Better_! Hilary writhed in humiliation, and the flush burnt more fiercely than before. If she could only manage to disbelieve it all, and wave it aside as a piece of foolish prejudice; but she could not do this, for her eyes were opened, and she saw the meaning of many things which she had misread before. Miss Carr's quizzical, disapproving glance; her father's anxious gaze; the little scornful sniff on the face of the old cook as she took her morning's orders. Could it be that they all felt the same, and were condemning her in their hearts as a stupid, consequential little girl, who had no importance whatever except in her own estimation? And--"_a hindrance_!" The word brought with it a throb of something deeper than wounded pride, for, with all her faults, Hilary was devoted to her father and her brothers and sisters, and the thought stung like a whip that they might not care for her--that the time could come when they might even wish for her absence! The light was growing dim in the deserted room, and, as Hilary laid her head back in the old-fashioned chair, the tears which rose to her eyes and trickled down her cheeks were the bitterest she had known in the course of her short life. CHAPTER NINE. THE VIOLIN LESSON.