“I shall do right, whatever it costs me,” Onoria said to herself at last, and she did not know that she might as well have said, “I shall do what I like, whatever it costs anybody else.” It would have meant precisely the same thing. CHAPTER VIII It was at this point in her meditations that Prendergast moved. He wanted attention and at last he received it. Miss Strickland made up the fire and brought him a little warm milk with a dash of brandy in it. Prendergast responded to the stimulant and began to wander restlessly about the room. He could not make up his mind what he wanted. He moved about vaguely and stiffly as one who is practising the art of walking. His desires broke in him; and Miss Strickland, with a divine patience gratified in turn and without hurry, each of his passing fancies. No one who knew Onoria Strickland as she was to the world, to her pupils, or even to her friends, could have believed in this tender, ministering Onoria, carrying out with anxious solicitude the whims of an old dog. She did not leave Prendergast till he had finally decided on a return to his basket. When his feeble snores told her that he was at rest, she groped her way to the mantelpiece for matches, and tidied herself for going out once more. Miss Strickland had never in her life looked untidy and she was not going to begin now. She had decided to make an appeal to Elsie’s parents. Hitherto she had considered parents unreasonable and obstructive people who paid the piper and considered themselves entitled to call for inappropriate tunes. Miss Bretherton and Miss Strickland together railed and laughed in turn at the delinquencies of parents—their ineffectual hankerings, their odd explosions of indignation and their ineradicable faith in the production of figs from thistles. None of them knew what their children were really like, and all of them thought they did. Nevertheless, Providence had provided parents with a little brief authority, and there were moments when it came in very usefully. It had flashed through Onoria’s mind, at the first instant when she saw her will defied by the truant couple, that perhaps Mrs. Andrews might be able to do something with Elsie. Miss Strickland did not know the Andrewses very well. She often said that they were like glass to her and that she could read them like a book; but Mrs. Andrews only came to tea with Miss Strickland once a year; and Miss Strickland returned her call within a fortnight. She had met Mr. Andrews twice, and they had had on both these occasions acrimonious disputes on politics. Mr. Andrews described Miss Strickland as a “strong-minded female for whom he had no manner of use,” and Miss Strickland said Mr. Andrews was “nothing but a hen-headed old grocer.” Mr. and Mrs. Andrews were eating their supper when Miss Strickland was announced.