Little Anne had talked on, her bright eyes roving from one to the other of her perturbed adult hearers. She felt that there was a gap for her to fill, a strange disturbance for her to cover, though it eluded her curiosity. But no one, be she ever so tactful, could be expected to talk on forever, and at last little Anne paused for a reply. “I think, little Anne, that it is indeed remarkably nice,” agreed Kit. “It was also remarkably nice of Mr. Latham to dissect it and to teach you the meaning of each separate sybable! Are you alone, little Anne? Will you go home with--” Kit hesitated--“Miss Abercrombie and me?” “I am alone,” said little Anne with dignity. “My mother knew I was going walking and she knew it was safe. But I’d love to go back with you. Why did you come, Kit? Looking for me doing penance again?” “No. Mr. Carrington came here to do penance himself, à la St. Antony, and he has done it,” Helen said, and laughed; the laugh frightened little Anne. “Mr. Carrington has done penance, but he has also inflicted it upon another, which must be a joy to him. You don’t read the Bible in your Church, I’m told. If you did you would read with profit the story of Joseph. He was a righteous youth, also. I’ve no doubt he enjoyed Mrs. Potiphar’s discomfort, as a righteous person would. She deserved what she got. Wait till I screw up my hair, Kit. It’s hard on hair to practise the virtue of humility.” Helen let down the masses of pure gold which crowned her. They fell around her like a veil, and till she twisted them into her hand and began to wind her hair around her head, it hid her from sight. Little Anne cried out ecstatically: “Oh, oh-ee! It’s like Jenny Wren, the dolls’ dressmaker! Mother read me that out of a grown-up book that Dickens wrote. But we read the Bible a lot, Miss Abercrombie; that’s not--I mean that’s a mistake. It’s a golden bower, like Jenny Wren’s. Aren’t you the beautifullest, Miss Abercrombie! I think Kitca takes after you; she’s the most beautifullest of all the kittens that ever could be ’magined, and all my life I shall bless you for her.” Helen threw back her head, her hair in place. Tears of rage and defeat were on her lashes. Her lips were grim and her pallor had given way to crimson in her cheeks. She was intelligent enough to know that she was defeated. Never again would she have Kit in her power. Since he had escaped her when she would have sealed him beyond the possibility of honourable escape, he was lost to her. Calm reflections upon this afternoon’s scene would put him beyond her grasp. She looked malignantly at little Anne. “What do they put on pincushions for innocents yet-to-be, or rather used to do it in the good old days? ‛Bless the Babe?’ David Copperfield had that on his prenatal pincushion. I shall work one for Anne Berkley, but there will be the difference of a word in the sentiment,” Helen said.