"You spend your holidays here!" Marigold exclaimed. "How is that?"
"I have nowhere else to go, because my father is in India, and I have no friends in England. When my education is finished, I believe father intends sending for me to go out to him."
"I suppose you are longing to go, are you not?"
"Well, I hardly know. Father seems like a stranger to me, and Miss Hardcastle has always been my best friend. I dread the thought of leaving her. You cannot imagine how kind she really is. Now, I wonder if you will think me very curious if I ask you a question?"
"No, indeed! What is it?"
"What did Muriel Wake mean about your mother working?"
Marigold explained, whilst Grace listened attentively.
"Ah!" she cried, when the little girl had finished speaking, "how you must love your mother!"
"I think that was why I was so very angry with Muriel. It seemed to me so dreadful that she should sneer at mother, and try to make a laughing-stock of her! She—who—who—"
Marigold paused, her chest heaving with strong emotion, her eyes full of indignant tears.