"You are helping me, Netta!" Hilda exclaimed with tears in her eyes. "How should I have got on through all this sad time if you had not been here to comfort and cheer me?"
"Yes, but the necessity for that is over. You have your friends, and though you don't go out yet, you often go to Lady Moulton's and some of your other friends', and they come to see you."
"Yes, and you will never go with me, Netta, nor see them when they come."
"No, dear; I have nothing in common with them. I do not know the people of whom you talk, and should simply sit there uncomfortably, so I prefer to be out of it altogether. Then I really miss my work. Ever since you came to us some eight years ago I have been teaching eight or ten hours a day. I like the work; it is immensely interesting, and I am happy in seeing my pupils improve."
"And all this means," Hilda said sorrowfully, "you are going to say that it is time for you to go back."
"No, it does not necessarily mean that—there is an alternative; I must either be doing something or go back."
"But, as I said before, Netta, what can we do, more than we have done?"
"That is what I have been thinking, Hilda. Anyhow, I mean to try to do something before I give it up and go to Germany again."
"I warn you, Netta, that I shall be furious if you do that. I am my own mistress now, for Mr. Pettigrew will let me do as I like now I am nineteen, and am quite determined that our old plan shall be carried out, and that you shall start an institution like that of Professor Menzel somewhere near London. You have been twelve months away, your pupils have already taken to other teachers, and there cannot be the least occasion for your assistance in an institution that is now well stocked with teachers, while here you could do enormous good. Anyhow, whether you stay or not, I shall, as soon as all this is settled, take a large house standing in its own grounds, in some healthy place near London, and obtain teachers."
"Well, we need not talk of that just yet," Netta said quietly; "it will be time enough when I have failed in carrying out my plans."