“Right! Keep on respecting her,” said Miss Gallatin. “Send her to Mrs. Wallace’s; she keeps a good house, sets a good table, good’s mine. I won’t have her here. Hold on a minute, Mr. Moore! Send her around to talk with me to-morrow, sometime. I won’t let her board here, but I’ll take her to see Mrs. Wallace. If she can’t come to-morrow, send her Sunday. Don’t you take her to Mrs. Wallace’s; I will. She’s a stranger here, going to work for Mr. Lucas where she’ll be noticed. Don’t start her wrong by escorting her to look up her boarding place. People are queer things; they’re more than likely to hope for the worst. Send the girl to me. I won’t take her in here, but I’ll do by her as I’d want done by me, if I was a young Hannah Gallatin, setting out to earn my living in a strange place. From what you say of her, she’s a conspicuous sort of girl that people with keen palates for gossip will be likely to lick to get a flavor of delicious suspicion! That’s the best I can do and say, so take yourself off, Mr. Moore, if you please; I’ve got my weekly accounts to make up, and it’s always a trial to my eyes, and my nerves, also my temper--of course, after the other two!” There was nothing for Rodney to do but to accept defeat with as much grace as he could summon. There was consolation in the thought that Miss Gallatin was willing to see Cicely, though only to conduct her to a rival house. He hoped that seeing her, Miss Gallatin might yield her position; he felt entire confidence in Cicely’s ability to win anyone’s complete trust and liking. There was no denying that Miss Gallatin was a wise and kind dragon in her guardianship of this girl whom she had never seen. Sunday morning Cicely betook herself to Mass at eight o’clock, keeping up her old hour, reflecting with a sense of bewilderment that only the previous Sunday she had heard Mass in the only church which, up to this time, she had ever known, and that Nan was with her, and that she had returned with her into the familiar Dowling household, where young Tom gloomed over their near parting and Mrs. Dowling lectured her on probable dangers which clearly implied her own deficiencies. And now she was beginning life in Beaconhite, uprooted, yet already replanted, on a larger salary, in promising conditions. She had a new friend with whom she was to do something new and pleasant that afternoon. She was a lucky Cis, she thought, kneeling, without much concentration upon it, before the altar, well in the front of the church of St. Francis Xavier at the eight o’clock Mass.