“I’m very glad you’ve come. But how did you know I was here?” “We didn’t know it,” answered both girls together. “We came to see Mrs. Angmering,” added Pamela. Mademoiselle Laure raised her eyebrows. “Well,” she said, “it’s of no consequence, since you are here. I’ve changed my plans since I saw you yesterday, and now I’m going to take you to Paris with me, instead of settling down here. You will like that, won’t you?” But the girls instinctively drew closer together, and Pamela said:-- “We would rather not go away, out of England. All our friends are here, you know.” Audrey gave them a look which encouraged the girls, while it evidently angered Mademoiselle Laure. She laughed harshly. “What friends have you? None. You can’t count your school-friends. You want to go into the world, to make new friends, new acquaintances. And in Paris, with me, you will enjoy yourselves. You will have what you call ‘a good time’. Don’t look at Madame Rocada. Answer me.” Pamela did answer, very boldly. “We don’t want to go away. We won’t go away. We want to see our mother first.” At these words their aunt, intensely astonished, seemed to lose all self-control, and breaking out into a tempest of passion, cried:-- “Your mother! What do you know about your mother? Your mother is mad, has been shut up in a lunatic asylum for years. She is no fit companion for you. Your father would never allow you to see her. If Madame Rocada has been encouraging you to ask to see her, she has done wrong, very wrong.” And Mademoiselle Laure turned angrily to Audrey. “You are always making mischief, always,” she said. But the girls took the part of their friend. “No, she hasn’t made mischief,” cried Babs. “She’s quite right, and whatever she says we’ll listen to. Mrs. Angmering, do you think we ought to go away to Paris with our aunt, without knowing where she is going to take us to?” But at these words the storm of Mademoiselle’s rage grew so violent that, whatever they might have thought of her as a guardian of youth before, all doubts on the subject melted away as she clenched her fists, and gnashed her teeth, and stamping her foot declared that they must and should go away with her, that their father wished it, and that they had no choice. “You are under age, both of you,” she said, “and until you are twenty-one, you are not able to choose for yourself. It is for your father to choose what is best for you.” “Well, then, let us see papa, and ask him to say whether we are unreasonable,” said Pamela, who was as daring as she was pretty. “He knows that it’s natural we should want to see our own mother, and even if he and she didn’t get on well together----” “Who has been telling you that?” snapped their aunt. “Madame Rocada, I suppose!” Pamela went on:-- “Even if, as I say, they quarrelled, and haven’t seen each other for years, that’s no reason why we shouldn’t see her, now we know she’s alive, and know too that she is as sane as we are!”