Unacquainted with the private door, Miss Mohun entered the office through the showroom, exchanging greetings with the young saleswomen, and finding Miss White putting away her materials.

Shaking hands, Miss Mohun said -

'I have brought your friend to make a visit to you while I go on to Tideshole. She tells me that you will be kind enough to see her on her way home, if you are going back at the same time.'

'I shall be delighted,' said Kalliope, with eyes as well as tongue, and no sooner were she and Gillian alone together than she joyfully exclaimed -

'Then Miss Mohun knows! You have told her.

'No - '

'Oh!' and there were volumes in the intonation. 'I was alarmed when she came in, and then so glad if it was all over. Dear Miss Merrifield - '

'Call me Gillian; I have told you to do so before! Phyllis is Miss Merrifield, and I won't be so before my time,' said Gillian, interrupting in a tone more cross than affectionate.

'I was going to say,' pursued Kalliope, 'that the shock her entrance gave to me proved all the more that we cannot be treating her properly.

'Never mind that! I did not come about that. She is quite taken with you, Kally, and wants you more than ever to be a Friendly Girl, because she thinks it would be so good for the others who are under you.'

'They have told me something about it,' said Kalliope thoughtfully.

'She fancied' added Gillian, 'that perhaps she did not make you understand the rights of it, not knowing that you were different from the others.'

'Oh no, it was not that,' said Kalliope. 'Indeed, I hope there is no such nonsense in me. It was what my dear father always warned us against; only poor mamma always gets vexed if she does not think we are keeping ourselves up, and she had just been annoyed at - something, and we did not know then that it was Lady Merrifield's sister.'

This was contradictory, but it was evident that, while Kalliope disowned conceit of station for herself, she could not always cross her mother's wishes. It was further elicited that if Lady Flight had taken up the matter there would have been no difficulty. Half a year ago the Flights had seemed to the young Whites angelic and infallible, and perhaps expectations had been founded on their patronage; but there had since been a shadow of disappointment, and altogether Kalliope was less disposed to believe that my Lady was correct in pronouncing Miss Mohun's cherished society as 'dissentish,' and only calculated for low servant girls and ladies who wished to meddle in families.

Clanship made Gillian's indignation almost bring down the office, and her eloquence was scarcely needed, since Kalliope had seen the value to some of her 'hands' from the class, the library, the recreation- room, and the influence of the ladies, above all, the showing them that it was possible to have variety and amusement free from vulgar and perilous dissipation; but still she hesitated. She had no time, she said; she could not attend classes, and she was absolutely necessary at home in the evenings; but Gillian assured her that nothing was expected from her but a certain influence in the right direction, and the showing the younger and giddier that she did not think the Society beneath her.