“No, no, I’ve been through an exciting time this morning, seeing a lawyer, and--and other things. Now go on, dears, tell me what you’ve come to see me about.” “Well, then, I must go back to the beginning,” said Pamela. “We waited and waited to hear from you after you’d seen this lady, and then Miss Willett heard from her, I think, for she seemed much disturbed, and she wrote to papa. And she wouldn’t tell us what he answered, but yesterday a lady came to Miss Willett’s and said that she was our aunt----” “Your aunt!” interrupted Audrey sharply. “Yes. She said she was sent by papa to take us away to live with her at ‘The Briars’----” “The Briars!” Audrey forgot her prudence, and uttered the word in a high key. “Yes, yes, the house where you were staying.” “Go on, go on.” “She wanted us to go with her at once, but Miss Willett, though, as she told us afterwards, she had heard from papa that our aunt was to fetch us away from school, didn’t like to let us go.” “The truth was,” put in Babs bluntly, “that Miss Willett didn’t like the look of this aunt of ours any more than we did.” “What was she like then?” asked Audrey quickly. “Oh, I can’t tell you exactly what it was about her that we didn’t like, but she was hard and cold and repellant, even though she pretended to be delighted with us.” “Who is this aunt? I didn’t know you had one!” “Well, we did know just that, but we hadn’t seen her for so many years that we’d forgotten her. She’s papa’s sister.” “Did she speak French or English?” asked Audrey. The girls looked surprised. “Oh, English, of course,” said Pamela. Who then was this fresh personage, thought Audrey? “So Miss Willett refused to let us go, saying we were not ready at such short notice, and our aunt went away. Then this morning Miss Willett brought us up to town and took us to papa’s flat in Victoria Street, but he wasn’t there. Three or four friends of his were waiting for him, and when we had been there a little while, Babs and I asked Miss Willett if we might get in a hansom and come here to see you. And at last she said yes, and so we came.” “But my dear girls, what do you want me to do?” “Well, first we want you to tell us what you thought of the--the lady who came to see you. Did you think”--and Pamela put her lips close to Audrey’s ear--“she was really our mother?” Audrey’s fingers quivered in those of the two girls. They must know the truth sooner or later, even if, as she began to suspect, they had not some notion of it already. “What did Miss Willett think?” she asked evasively. Pamela whispered again:-- “She thinks she _is_. But oh, Madame, she--she told us--that if what the lady says is true--then--then papa has not treated her well!” Audrey gave a sigh of relief. Gently as the words were put, there was a suggestion in Pamela’s intelligent eyes that she knew or guessed more than she liked to say. Audrey took the girl’s hand and pressed it to her breast, and said in a low voice:--