"Pauvre petite!" exclaimed Mademoiselle in a tone full of sympathy, then suddenly glancing across the road her face became alight with smiles, she waved her hand to someone, bowed repeatedly, and said in a low voice, "It is that brave Madame Jones!" Susan looked in the same direction; she had always been curious to see Madame Jones since the story of the beefsteak. There she was, standing at the door of her shop with her sleeves tucked up; joints of meat and carcasses hung all round. Her face was broad and red, and she wore a black net cap with pink roses in it. She might be brave, and noble, and all that Mademoiselle had said, but Susan thought her not at all nice-looking, and was quite disappointed. She had not expected her to be like that. "It is a most excellent woman," murmured Delphine enthusiastically, "and of a noble heart. It is to her we owe the commencement of our success." Aunt Hannah's gate was reached wonderfully soon after this, and still Susan had not told her of the mistake. "It was only put off, however," she said to herself, "and it really had not been her fault. She would explain all, the very next time they met." Mademoiselle left her at the gate with an affectionate good-bye, and as Susan walked up the path to the door the doctor came out. He was generally in's great hurry, but to-day he stopped and smiled at her: "Good news," he said. "If this improvement continues you may see your companion to-morrow, and sit with her an hour. She's much stronger and better." Was it good news? Of course Susan was glad that Sophia was better, but the thought at once came into her mind, as she watched the doctor out of the gate, "she will ask me about the collar. She will expect a message from Mademoiselle." All that evening she was troubled about this, and even hoped that Sophia Jane might not be _quite_ so well to-morrow, so that she might have time to see Mademoiselle again and make it all right. "What should I do if Sophia Jane asks me straight out whether I said the collar was from her? I couldn't tell her I didn't, and I couldn't tell her I did. Oh, how I wish I had not put it off." Now, in all her reflections, Susan still made excuses for herself, and still said, "it was not my fault." She did not see that she had been mean and jealous and deceitful; but she did see that she had got herself into a difficulty, and was anxious, not to atone for her fault, but to escape the consequences of it. When conscience told her that the right thing was confession to her companion, she would not listen. "After all," she said, "she perhaps won't ask me, and then it will be all right; for I _certainly will_ explain it to Mademoiselle, as I always meant to." And in this way Susan got more and more enclosed in the tangled web she was weaving; for how can we make anything right unless we first see that it is wrong?