"He introduced her; and said she had come to make a long stay; and asked if I'd mind her going to bed at once, as she'd had a very tiring day, and was tired out. She looked it, to me she seemed unnaturally pale. As she stood there, without speaking a word, I felt quite sorry for the child. So I took her upstairs and lent her Frances' things to go to bed with--she hadn't even so much as an extra pocket-handkerchief of her own." "I thought you said she'd come to stay." "So he said--but she hadn't so much as a handbag in the way of luggage." "I suppose it's coming--or has it come?" "It is not coming; nor has it come. If you'll allow me I'll try to make you understand as much as I understand--which is very little. The whole thing seems to me to be mysterious; however, by this time I ought to know Strathmoira. When I came downstairs again he told me a story of which I did not find it easy to make head or tail. It seems that Miss Gilbert has a guardian, in whose charge she appears to have been." "You remember Frances said she'd left the convent with her guardian; and that was why she didn't want to stop." "I do remember. It seems that the guardian is not in a state of health to take proper care of his ward, though what ails him I couldn't make out; so Strathmoira brought her to me." "Of course we are very glad to see her; but--what has Strathmoira got to do with Miss Gilbert? And why as a matter of course has he brought her to you?--without giving you any notice, in that unceremonious fashion? Hasn't she any friends of her own?" "My dear Harold, you are sufficiently acquainted with Strathmoira to be aware that you can rain questions at him, and that, without refusing to answer one, he can evade them all, and do it in such a way that you are not sure if he knows that you ever put them. I asked him everything I could think of in the short time he stayed; but all that he told me amounted to this--that he hopes I'll treat Miss Gilbert as a daughter." "Upon my word!--and she a stranger!" "He also hoped that I'll see her properly fitted up with clothes from top to toe!" "With whose money?"