Phronsie was about to ask, “Why does not Hortense go up for it?” but Mrs. Chatterton forestalled the question by saying with a frown, “Hortense has gone down to the dressmaker’s.  No child who calls me to account for anything I ask of her can be helped by me.  Do as you like, Phronsie.  No one will compel you to learn how to do things so that you can be a comfort to your mother.  Only remember, if you don’t obey me, you will lose your only chance.”  After this speech, Mrs. Chatterton sat back and played with her rings, looking with oblique glances of cold consideration at the child.

“I’ll go,” said Phronsie with a long sigh, “and do every thing you say.”

“I do really believe I can bend one of those dreadful Pepper children to my will,” thought Mrs. Chatterton exultingly.  “She is my only hope.  Polly does better than she did, but she is too old to be tractable, and she has a shrewd head on her practical body, and the others are just horrible!” She gave a shiver.  “But Phronsie will grow up to fit my purpose, I think.  Three purposes, I may say—­to get the Peppers gradually out from under Horatio King’s influence, and to train up a girl to wait on me so that I can get away from these French villains of maids, and to spite Alexander’s daughter by finally adopting this Phronsie if she suits me.  But I must move carefully.  The first thing is to get the child fastened to me by her own will.”

Phronsie, ascending the stairs to the lumber-room, with careful deliberateness, found no hint of joy at the prospect before her, reaching into the dim distance to that enchanted time when she should be grown up.  But there was a strangely new sense of responsibility, born in an hour; and an acceptance of life’s burdens, that made her feel very old and wise.

“I shall be a comfort to my mother,” she said confidently, and mounted on.

XVI

Where is Phronsie?

Phronsie shut the door of the lumber-room, and with a great sigh realized that she had with her own hand cut herself off from the gay life below stairs.

“But they are not so very far off,” she said, “and I shall soon be down again,” as she made her way across the room and opened the closet door.

A little mouse scurried along the shelf and dropped to the floor.  Phronsie peered into the darkness within, her small heart beating fearfully as she held the knob in her hand.

“There may be more,” she said irresolutely.  “I suppose he wouldn’t live up here all alone.  Please go away, mousie, and let me get the box.”

For answer there was a scratching and nibbling down in the corner that held more terrors for the anxious ears than an invading army.

“I must go in,” said Phronsie, “and bring out the box.  Please, good mouse, go away for one moment; then you may come back and stay all day.”