"Very well," said Mabel. "You will find Aunt Henrietta," she continued, "waiting for us all in the drawing-room." Priscilla immediately left the room. She walked across the broad landing to the private sitting-room which Lady Lushington occupied in the hotel. The latter was standing by a window, when the door opened, and a tall, rather untidy girl dressed in dark-blue serge of no graceful cut, with her hair brushed back from her forehead and her face much agitated, appeared before that lady. "I have something to say to you, Lady Lushington," said Priscilla. "You are Priscilla Weir?" said that lady. "There is a great difference between you and the little girl with the blue eyes. What is her name?" "Annie Brooke." "You are very great friends, are you not?" "We are schoolfellows," was Priscilla's reply. Lady Lushington looked all over the girl. The expression of her face signified disapproval; but suddenly her eyes met the large, grey ones of Priscilla and a curious feeling visited her. She was a kindly woman, although full of prejudices. "Sit down, child," she said. "If you have something really to say I will listen; although, to tell you the truth, I am exceedingly hungry, and am waiting for you all to dine with me in the restaurant." "I am not hungry," said Priscilla, "and, if you will excuse me, I will not go to the restaurant to-night; your kind maid will bring me something to eat in my bedroom." "You are tired from your journey, poor girl! Well, then, go to bed and get rested. We start for Interlaken in the morning." "That is why I must trouble you to-night," said Priscilla. "Why, my dear? Do sit down." But Priscilla stood; only now she put out a slim hand and steadied herself by holding on to the back of a chair. "It was a great delight to come to you," said Priscilla, "and a very great surprise; and when you arranged to pay all my travelling expenses and to take me about with you from place to place, I consented without my pride being especially hurt; for I felt sure that in many small ways I could be of use to you. I thought over all the different things I could do, and, somehow, it seemed to me that I might make up to you for the money you are spending on me--" "But when we ask a guest," interrupted Lady Lushington, "to go with us on a pleasure-trip, we don't form a sort of creditor and debtor account in our minds; we are just glad to give pleasure, and want no return for it beyond the fact that we _are_ giving pleasure." "I understand that," said Priscilla, her eyes brightening; "and the pleasure you would give me would be, oh! beyond any power of mine to describe, for there is something in me which would appreciate; and if I were to see great, grand, beautiful scenery, it would dwell always in my mind, and in the very darkest days that came afterwards I should remember it and be happy because of it."