’It is just the disadvantage of that kind of school that girls talk that sort of undesirable stuff.  Gillian said to herself; but curiosity, or interest in the Whites, prompted her to add, ’What did she tell you?’

‘If you are so cross, I shan’t tell you.  You hurt my head, I say.’

‘Come, Val, I ought to know.’

‘It’s a secret.’

‘Then you should not have told me so much.’

Val laughed triumphantly, and called her sister Mrs. Curiosity, and at that moment Aunt Jane knocked at the door, and said Val was not to talk.

Val made an impatient face and began to whisper, but Gillian had too much proper feeling to allow this flat disobedience, and would not listen, much as she longed to do so.  She heard her little sister rolling and tossing about a good deal, but made herself hard-hearted on principle, and acted sleep.  On her own judgment, she would not waken the child in the morning, and Aunt Jane said she was quite right, it would be better to let Val have her sleep out, than send her to school fretful and half alive.  ’But you ought not to have let her talk last night.’

As usual, reproof was unpleasing, and silenced Gillian.  She hoped to extract the rest of the story in the course of the day.  But before breakfast was over Valetta rushed in with her hat on, having scrambled into her clothes in a hurry, and consuming her breakfast in great haste, for she had no notion either of losing her place in the class, or of missing the discussion of the entertainment with Kitty, from whom she had been so cruelly parted.

Tete-a-tetes were not so easy as might have been expected between two sisters occupying the same room, for Valetta went to bed and to sleep long before Gillian, and the morning toilette was a hurry; besides, Gillian had scruples, partly out of pride and partly out of conscientiousness, about encouraging Valetta in gossip or showing her curiosity about it.  Could she make anything out from Kalliope herself?  However, fortune favoured her, for she came out of her class only a few steps behind little Maura; and as some of Mr. Edgar’s boys were about, the child naturally regarded her as a protector.

Maura was quite as pretty as her elders, and had more of a southern look.  Perhaps she was proportionably precocious, for she returned Gillian’s greeting without embarrassment, and was quite ready to enter into conversation and show her gratification at compliments upon her brother’s voice.

’And does not Kalliope sing?  I think she used to sing very nicely in the old times.’

‘Oh yes,’ said Maura; ‘but she doesn’t now.’

‘Why not?  Has not she time?’

‘That’s not all’ said Maura, looking significant, and an interro-gative sound sufficed to bring out—–­’It is because of Mr. Frank.’

‘Mr. Frank Stebbing?’

’Yes.  He was always after her, and would walk home with her after the practices, though Alexis was always there.  I know that was the reason for I heard la mamma mia trying to persuade her to go on with the society, and she was determined, and would not.  Alex said she was quite right, and it is very tiresome of him, for now she never walks with us on Sunday, and he used to come and give us bonbons and crackers.’