"Yes, one," said Laura shortly.--For she thought Lilith winked at the third girl, a publican's daughter from Clunes. "Another like the last? Or have you gone in for yellow ochre this time?" Laura flamed in silence. "Great Scott, what a colour that was! Fit for an Easter Fair--Miss Day said so." "It wasn't mine," retorted Laura passionately. "It ... it belonged to a girl I knew who died--and her mother gave it to me as a remembrance of her--but I didn't care for it." "I shouldn't think you did.--But I say, does your mother let you wear other people's clothes? What a rummy thing to do!" She went out of the room--no doubt to spread this piece of gossip further. Laura looked daggers after her. She was angry enough with Lilith for having goaded her to the lie, but much angrier with herself for its blundering ineffectualness. It was not likely she had been believed, and if she were, well, it made matters worse instead of better: people would conclude that she lived on charity. Always when unexpectedly required to stand on the defensive, she said or did something foolish. That morning, for instance, a similar thing had happened--it had rankled all day in her mind. On looking through the washing, Miss Day had exclaimed in horror at the way in which her stockings were mended. "Whoever did it? They've been done since you left here. I would never have passed such dams." Laura crimsoned. "Those? Oh, an old nurse we've got at home. We've had her for years and years--but her eyesight's going now." Miss Day sniffed audibly. "So I should think. To cobble like that!" They were Mother's dams, hastily made, late at night, and with all Mother's genial impatience at useful sewing as opposed to beautiful. Laura's intention had been to shield Mother from criticism, as well as to spare Miss Day's feelings. But to have done it so clumsily as this! To have had to wince under Miss Day's scepticism! It was only a wonder the governess had not there and then taxed her with the fib. For who believed in old nurses nowadays? They were a stock property, borrowed on the spur of the moment from readings in THE FAMILY HERALD, from Tennyson's LADY CLARE. Why on earth had such a far-fetched excuse leapt to her tongue? Why could she not have said Sarah, the servant, the maid-of-all-work? Then Miss Day would have had no chance to sniff, and she, Laura, could have believed herself believed, instead of having to fret over her own stupidity.--But what she would like more than anything to know was, why the mending of the stockings at home should NOT be Sarah's work? Why must it just be Mother--her mother alone--who made herself so disagreeably conspicuous, and not merely by darning the stockings, but, what was a still greater grievance, by not even darning them well? XI.