Hetty flashed out of the room, and Phyllis, quiet and triumphant, turned to her lesson-books with a most virtuous expression upon her placid face.

Hetty wept for an hour in her own room.  Looking back on her conduct she could not see that she had been more to blame than Phyllis.  Oh, how was it that Phyllis was always proved to be so good while she was always forced into the wrong?  She remembered a prayer asking for meekness which Mrs. Kane had taught her, and she knelt by her bedside and said it aloud; and just then she heard Miss Davis calling to her to open the door.

“My dear,” said the governess, “I have come to tell you that you really must apologize to Phyllis.  It was exceedingly rude of you to tell her so flatly that her words were untrue.”

Hetty flushed up to the roots of her hair and for a few moments could not speak.  She had just been on her knees asking for strength from God to overcome her pride, and here was an opportunity for practising meekness.  But it was dreadfully hard, thought Hetty.

“I will try and do it, Miss Davis.  But may I write a letter in my own way?”

“Certainly, my dear.  I am glad to find you so willing to acknowledge yourself in fault.”

Left alone to perform her task Hetty opened her desk and sat biting her pen.  At last she wrote: 

“Dear Phyllis,—­I am very sorry I said so rudely that you did not tell the truth.  But oh, why did you not tell it, and then there need not have been any trouble?

“HETTY.”

Hetty brought this note herself into the school-room, and in presence of Miss Davis handed it to Phyllis.

“Do you call that an apology?” said Phyllis, handing the note to Miss Davis.

“I don’t think you have made things any better, Hetty,” said Miss Davis.

“I said what I could, Miss Davis.  Phyllis ought to apologize to me now.”

Phyllis gave her a look of cold surprise, and took up a book.

“Pray, Miss Davis, do not mind,” said she over the edges of her book.  “I expect nothing but insolence from Hetty Gray.  Mother little knew what she was providing for us when she brought her here.”

Hetty turned wildly to the governess.  “Miss Davis,” she cried, “can I not go away somewhere, away from here?  Is there not some place in the world where they would give a girl like me work to do?  How can I go on living here, to be treated as Phyllis treats me?”

Miss Davis took her by the hand and led her out of the room and upstairs to her own chamber.  Having closed the door she sat down and talked to her.

“Hetty,” she said, “when you give way to your pride in passions like this you forget things.  You asked me just now, is there any place where people would give work to a girl like you to do?  I don’t think there is—­no place such as you could go to.”

“I would go anywhere,” moaned Hetty.