"I can though." The girl shook forward a sudden halo of curls and laughed in a way which it was impossible to resist. "I am Fanny, from downstairs, and Mrs. Carew is a silly old woman who talks a lot, but she is not stupid enough not to know the difference between a girl like you and a fly-by-night like me. Now I have shocked you," she went on breathlessly, seeing Joan's flush, "just when I was setting out to be good. I'll bite my tongue out and start again." She coughed once with alarming intensity. Joan moved slowly away and took off her hat and coat. So this was Fanny Bellairs, the girl whose doings provided such a purple background for her own dull existence. She looked again at the little figure, lying back now, eyes closed, lips tremulous from the struggle for breath which her fit of coughing had brought her. It was a perfectly-fashioned face, though when Joan had time to study it, she could see that the colouring was just a little crudely put on and that it had smudged in the shadows under her eyes where the tears had lain. She was such a thin, small slip of a girl, too, little dimpled hands and a baby face under the gold curls. Fanny opened her eyes at that moment, wide and innocent, and answered Joan's glance with a wistful smile. "Thinking of all Mrs. Carew ever said about me?" she asked. "I am not as bad as she sometimes paints me. Still"--she stood up--"I'll go, if you would rather I did. Hate to make a nuisance of myself." She moved slowly--it was, in reality, reluctantly--towards the door, and Joan came out of her reverie with a start. "Please don't go," she said quickly. "You must think I am awfully rude, but really I was not thinking about Mrs. Carew or anything so disagreeable. I was thinking how pretty you were, and wondering how old you could be." The girl at the door stopped and turned back. Laughter filled her eyes, yet there was a little hint of mockery behind the mirth. "Go on!" she said, "you and your thoughts! I know just what they were, my dear; but it doesn't matter to me, I am used to it. Twenty-two, at your service, mum"--she came a little away from the door and swept Joan a curtsey--"and everything my own, even my hair, though you mayn't believe it." CHAPTER XVI "Pale dreams arise, swift heart-beats yearn, Up, up, some ecstasy to learn! The spirit dares not speak, afar Youth lures its fellow, like a star." ANON.