” You thought I was Mrs. TreMellyn returned from the dead.” I said. ” I understand.”

” It was so foolish of me. It seems so odd that you should have a riding habit … so exactly like hers.”

” This was hers,” I said.

She was startled. She put out a hand and touched the skirt. She held it between thumb and forefinger and her eyes had a hazy look as though she were staring into the past.

I went on quickly: “I have to give Alvean riding lessons, and I lacked the suitable clothes. The child took me to what I now know to have been her mother’s apartments, and found this for me. I asked Mrs. Polgrey if it were in order for me to wear it and she assured me that it was. “

” I see,” said Celestine. ” That explains everything. Please don’t mention my folly, Miss Leigh. I’m glad no one else saw it.”

” But anyone might have been startled, particularly as” — ” As what?”

” As there seems to be this feeling about Alice … about Mrs. TreMellyn. “

” What feeling?”

” Perhaps there isn’t a feeling. Perhaps it is my imagination only, but I did imagine that there was a belief in the house that she was not at rest.”

” What an extraordinary thing to say! Why should she not be at rest?

Who told you this? “

” I … I’m not sure,” I floundered. ” Perhaps it is merely my imagination. Perhaps no one suggested anything, and the idea just came to me. I’m sorry that I upset you.”

” You must not be sorry. Miss Leigh. You have been kind to me. I feel better now. She stood up. ” Don’t tell anyone I was so silly. So you are giving Alvean riding lessons. I am glad. Tell me, are you getting along with her better now? I fancied, when you arrived, that there was a little antagonism . on her part. “

” She is the kind of child who would automatically be antagonistic to authority. Yes, I think we are becoming friends. These riding lessons have helped considerably. By the way, they are secret from her father.”

Celestine Nansellock looked a little shocked, and I hurried on: ” Oh, it is only her good progress which is a secret. He knows about the lessons. Naturally I asked his permission first. But he does not realise how well she is coming along. It is to be a surprise.”

” I see,” said Celestine. ” Miss Leigh, I do hope she is not over-strained by these lessons.”

” Strained? But why? She is a normal healthy child.”

“She is highly strung. I wonder whether she has the temperament to make a rider.”

” She is so young that we have a chance of forming her character, which’ will have it’s effect on her temperament. She is enjoying her lessons and is very eager to surprise her father.”

” So she is becoming your friend. Miss Leigh. I am glad of that. Now I must go. Thank you again for your kindness. And do remember … not a word to anyone.”

” Certainly not, if it is your wish.”

She smiled and went out.

I went to the mirror and looked at myself I’m afraid this was becoming a habit since I had come here and murmured:

” That might be Alice … apart from the face.” Then I half closed my eyes and let the face become blurred while I imagined a different face there.

Oh yes, it must have been a shock for Celestine.

And I was not to say anything. I was very willing to agree to this. I wondered what Connan TreMellyn would say if he knew that I was going about in his wife’s clothes and frightened practical people like Celestine Nansellock when they saw me in dim places.

I felt he would not wish me to continue to look so like Alice. So, since I needed Alice’s clothes for my riding lessons with Alvean, and since I was determined they should continue, that I might have the pleasure of saying, I told you so! to Alvean’s father, I was as anxious as Celestine Nansellock that nothing should be said about our encounter on the landing.

A week passed and I felt I was slipping into a routine. Lessons in the schoolroom and the riding field progressed favourably. Peter Nansellock came over to the house on two occasions, but I managed to elude him. I was deeply conscious of Connan TreMellyn’s warning and I knew it to be reasonable. I faced the fact that I was stimulated by Peter Nansellock and that I could very easily find myself in a state of mind when I was looking forward to his visits. I had no-intention of placing myself in that position for I did not need Connan TreMellyn to tell me that Peter Nansellock was a philanderer.

I thought now and then of his brother Geoffry, and I concluded that Peter must be very like him; and when I thought of Geoffry I thought also of Mrs. Polgrey’s daughter of whom she had never spoken; Jennifer with the ” littlest waist you ever saw,” and a way of keeping herself to herself until she had lain in the hay or the gillyflowers with the fascinating Geoffry—the outcome of which had been that one day she walked into the sea.

I shivered to contemplate the terrible pitfalls which lay in wait for unwary women. There were unattractive ones like myself who depended on the whims of others for a living; but there were those even more unfortunate creatures, those who attracted the roving eyes of philanderers and found one day that the only bearable prospect life had to offer was its end.

My interest in Alvean’s riding lessons and her father’s personality had made me forget little Gillyflower temporarily. The child was so quiet that she was easily forgotten. Occasionally I heard her thin reedy voice, in that peculiar off-key singing out of doors or in the house. The Polgreys’ room was immediately below my own, and Gillyflower’s was next to theirs, so that when she sang in her own room her voice would float up to me.

I used to say to myself when I heard it: If she can learn songs she can learn other things.

I must have been given to day-dreams, for side by side with that picture of Connan TreMellyn, handing his daughter the first prize for horse-jumping at the November horse show and giving me an apologetic and immensely admiring and appreciative glance at the same time, there was another picture. This was of Gilly sitting at the schoolroom table side by side with Alvean, while I listened to whispering in the background:

” This could never have happened but for Miss Martha Leigh. You see she is a wonder with the children. Look what she has done for Alvean . and now for Gilly.”

But at this time Alvean was still a stubborn child and Gilly flower elusive and, as the Tapperty girls said: ” With a tile loose in the upper story.”

Then into those more or less peaceful days came two events to disturb me.

The first was of small moment, but it haunted me and I could not get it out of my mind.

I was going through one of Alvean’s exercise books, marking her sums, while she was sitting at the table writing an essay; and as I turned the pages of the exercise book a piece of paper fell out.

It was covered with drawings. I had already discovered that Alvean had a distinct talent for drawing, and one day, when the opportunity offered itself, I intended to approach Connan TreMellyn about this, for I felt she should be encouraged. I myself could teach her only the rudiments of the art, but I believed she was worthy of a qualified drawing teacher.

The drawings were of faces. I recognised one of myself. It was not bad. Did I really look as prim as that? Not always, I hoped. But perhaps that was how he saw me. There was her father . several of him. He was quite recognisable too. I turned the page and this was covered with girls’ faces. I was not sure who they were meant to be.

Herself? No . that was Gilly, surely. And yet it had a look of herself.

I stared at the page. I was so intent that I did not realise she had leaned across the table until she snatched it away.

” That’s mine,” she said.

” And that,” I retaliated, ” is extremely bad manners.”

” You have no right to pry.”

” My dear child, that paper was in your arthmetic book.”

” Then it had no right to be there.”

” You must take your revenge on the paper,” I said lightly. And then more seriously: ” I do beg of you not to snatch things in that ill-mannered way.”

” I’m sorry,” she murmured still defiantly.

I turned back to the sums, to most of which she had given inaccurate answers. Arithmetic was not one of her best subjects. Perhaps that was why she spent so much of her time drawing faces instead of getting on with her work. Why had she been so annoyed? Why had she drawn those faces which were part Gilly’s, part her own? “

I said: ” Alvean, you will have to work harder at your sums.”

She grunted sullenly.

” You don’t seem to have mastered the rules of practice nor even simple multiplication. Now if your arithmetic were half as good as your drawing I should be very pleased.”

Still she did not answer.

” Why did you not wish me to see the faces you had drawn? I thought some of them quite good.”

Still no answer.

” Particularly,” I went on, ” that one of your father.”

Even at such a time the mention of his name could bring that tender, wistful curve to her lips.

” And those girl’s faces. Do tell me who they were supposed to be you or Gilly?”

The smile froze on her lips. Then she said almost breathlessly : ” Who did you take them for. Miss?”

” Whom,” I corrected gently.

” Whom did you take them for then?”

” Well, let me look at them again.”

She hesitated, then she brought out the paper, and handed it to me; her eyes were eager.

I studied the faces. I said: ” This one could be either you or Gilly.”

” You think we’re alike then?”