I, a girl of twelve, was the Janet Holme indicated above, and I had been looking over Chirper's shoulder with wondering eyes while she addressed the card. "But who is Lady Pollexfen, and where is Dupley Walls? and what have I to do with either, Chirper, please?" I asked. "If there is one thing in little girls more hateful than another, it is curiosity," answered Chirper, with her mouth half full of nails. "Curiosity has been the bane of many of our sex. Witness Bluebeard's unhappy wife. If you want to know more, you must ask Mrs. Whitehead. I have my instructions, and I acts on them." Meeting Mrs. Whitehead half an hour later as she was coming down the stone corridor that led from the refectory, I did ask that lady precisely the same questions that I had put to Chirper. Her frosty glance, filled with a cold surprise, smote me even through her spectacles, and I shrank a little, abashed at my own boldness. "The habit of asking questions elsewhere than in the class-room should not be encouraged in young ladies," said Mrs. Whitehead, with a sort of prim severity. "The other young ladies are gone home; you are about to follow their example." "But, Mrs. Whitehead--Madam," I pleaded, "I never had any other home than Park Hill." "More questioning, Miss Holme? Fie! Fie!" And with a lean forefinger uplifted in menacing reproval, Mrs. Whitehead sailed on her way, nor deigned me another word. I stole out into the playground, wondering, wretched, and yet smitten through with faint delicious thrillings of a new-found happiness such, as I had often dreamed of, but had scarcely dared hope ever to realize. I, Janet Holme, going home! It was almost too incredible for belief. I wandered about like one mazed--like one who stepping suddenly out of darkness into sunshine is dazzled by an intolerable brightness whichever way he turns his eyes. And yet I was wretched: for was not Miss Chinfeather dead? And that, too, was a fact almost too incredible for belief.