Miss Gregson interposed.
"Is that wise? It opens out of your own room, and you know nothing about this girl. For all you know she may be one of a gang."
Sheila ignored this remark.
"To the blue room, Walter," she said, adding, "she's come to my very door and I'm not going to turn her out."
It was on the tip of Miss Gregson's tongue to remark that no one had suggested such a thing, but she wisely refrained; she knew that it would be of no avail to advise further caution of any kind, or to remind Sheila that there were other rooms more suitable for this poor stranger.
Miss Gregson and Sheila followed Walter and Elsie as they carried Meg upstairs and deposited her on the sofa.
Sheila leant over the girl, fanning her.
"Just about my age, Angel," she said, "and I have everything I want, and she nothing."
The pity and emotion displayed on Sheila's face greatly pleased her old friend, who had never known her to be so touched before by another's sorrows.
Meg took some little time to recover from her swoon, and when she at last opened her eyes she was too tired to speak, and was only conscious that she lay on a comfortable couch by the window, through which came the song of birds, and that a girl of about her own age was kneeling by her side. She wondered vaguely if this was dying. If so she was glad to die.