Just then Mrs. Brett was seen returning. Lucy stood up hastily. "I will talk to you. It would be best," she said then.
"To-night," said Rosamund—"to-night, after prayers, let us meet outside under the elm-trees. We can talk there and put things a bit straight. I don't think we can go on as we have begun. It would make us both unhappy."
"My dear girls," called out Mrs. Brett—"ah! I see the tea-things are all washed up and put away in the basket. Well, they will be quite safe; there are no gipsies in these parts. Now, who will come with me as far as the station? Don't all speak at once. I shall be very glad of the company of those who like to come; but those who don't may stay behind, and they won't offend me in the very least."
But all the girls wanted to accompany Mrs. Brett; and, surrounded by a crowd of eager young people, the good lady walked to the railway station.
CHAPTER IV.
CASTING OF THE DIE.
Rosamund and Jane Denton shared the same bedroom. They had been friends from childhood, for they had lived in the same street and gone to the same kindergarten together, and their mothers had been old school-fellows before marriage, so their friendship had grown up, as it were, with their very lives.
But Jane was a girl of no very special characteristics; she leant on Rosamund, admiring her far more vivacious ways and appearance, glad to be in her society, and somewhat indifferent to every one else in the wide world.
She sat now on a low and comfortable seat near the open window. Prayers were over, but the time that Rosamund had fixed for meeting Lucy Merriman had not quite arrived. She yawned and stretched herself luxuriously.