"Well, dearest, that's all about the Merrimans for the present. I am staying with Irene; but she knows that if she plays any very serious pranks I go. Meanwhile you must not suppose that I am letting my lessons alone. I am working very hard with Miss Frost. She is a dear creature when you get to know her, and she is very fond of me. I told you about those dreadful insects that that wicked child made her swallow. Well, she is all right again now, and isn't a bit afraid of them, and she believes the doctor, and is perfectly happy. As to Irene, nothing would induce her to do anything of the kind to Miss Frost now, for she would get it hot from me if she did. I should like to stay with Irene for the next few months at any rate, and if you want me to get on very fast indeed with my music, and to take up my drawing systematically, some of the masters who attend at the Merrimans' could come on here, couldn't they? I think that could be arranged. Dear Lady Jane is so fond of me, and I really think I am doing a little bit of good in the world, so you won't be angry even if the Professor writes you a horrid letter about your own
"Rosamund."
When this letter was despatched Rosamund felt quite light and happy, and she went out into the garden to talk to Miss Frost. Miss Frost looked already quite six or seven years younger than she had done on the day of Rosamund's arrival. She was no longer in terror of her life. Rosamund suggested to her that she should lock her door at nights, which the poor lady did very willingly. She told her there was not the slightest danger of anything happening, as nothing would induce Irene to give her any more frights.
"But if you are nervous, do lock your door," she said; "and if you really want pills for your indigestion, I will keep them for you, and see they are not meddled with."
Miss Frost had attended to all Rosamund's directions, for this masterful young woman was really ruling the entire house. The servants, too, seemed very much brighter and better. Lady Jane was heard to laugh constantly, and was even induced to play some old-fashioned music on the old piano in the drawing-room.
As to Irene, she wore white dresses and blue dresses and pink dresses, and was not once seen in the obnoxious red.
"That dress you can put on the day I leave The Follies," Rosamund had said to her young friend. "No, I am not going to hide it or put it away. It can hang in your wardrobe; but you are not to wear it while I am here, for I dislike it. I want you to be pretty and beautiful, and an influence for good, as God meant you to be."
Now, all these things told upon Irene; but most of all was she amazed and lifted out of herself when both Miss Frost and Rosamund discovered that she had as quick and clever a mind as she had a beautiful face. It is true she hardly knew anything. She could read and write, and had read a great many books; but all the ordinary subjects of education had been set aside by the willful child.
Rosamund now suggested that they should both compete for a small prize. She chose a subject which she herself knew nothing about, therefore she said they were very nearly equal. They both did compete, and perhaps Rosamund did not exactly put forth her full powers; but, anyhow, in the end Irene won, and her delight was beyond bounds. She rushed down to her mother's boudoir and showed her the beautifully bound volume of Kingsley's Water Babies which was the prize she had won.
"I have got it through merit," she said. "Think of my getting anything through merit!"