"You can of course, if you like," answered Fanchon, with great calmness, "but all the same, I don't think you will; I've got something to say to you, Brenda, and it is something rather dreadful." "What?" said Brenda. She longed to rouse herself into a towering passion, but she had the memory of her dream still over her, and the thought of Mr Amberley's face with its changed and quite awful expression. She was more tired, too, than she cared to own. She found her eyes fixed upon those of her eldest pupil. What a dreadful-looking girl she was--so singularly plain and ungainly--all legs and arms, and with that truly disagreeable face! Brenda contrasted her with a girl she had seen at Hazlitt Chase, and wondered how she had endured her own position so long. And now this girl was actually bullying her--a girl not fifteen years of age! Fanchon seemed to read some of her governess' discomfiture and amazement; in short, she was enjoying herself mightily. It was delightful to turn the tables; it was delicious for the slave to be, even for a short time, the master. She, therefore, continued in a calm voice: "I'd best tell you everything, and then you will know what is to be done. To begin with: I think you partly owe the discovery we have made to the fact that you, in your spirit of parsimony, would not give poor little Nina flounces to her dress." Brenda gasped, but was speechless. "And," continued Fanchon, "Nina, although she is not yet eleven years of age, is no fool, and so yesterday, when you were out of the way--you know the old proverb, `When the cat's away, the mice will play,'--well, that poor little mouse, Nina, thought she would have a gambol on her own account yesterday, and Joey and I joined in. We quizzed father with great dexterity and--in short, Madam Cat!--we found you out!" These last words were quite terrible. From Fanchon's pale eyes a steely fire shot forth. It seemed to scorch the miserable Brenda, who shrank lower on her pillows and longed for the ceiling to fall on her. "I,"--she began tremblingly--"I think you are quite the most impertinent--and I wish--I wish--you would go. I shall speak--to--to your dear father. I'll just get dressed and go to him." Here Brenda burst into tears.