be close to you!'

'Yes,' said Ethelberta quietly.

'How I should like to see you sitting at a grand dinner-table, among
lordly dishes and shining people, and father about the room unnoticed!
Berta, I have never seen a dinner-party in my life, and father said that
I should some day; he promised me long ago.'

'How will he be able to carry out that, my dear child?' said Ethelberta,
drawing her sister gently to her side.

'Father says that for an hour and a half the guests are quite fixed in
the dining-room, and as unlikely to move as if they were trees planted
round the table. Do let me go and see you, Berta,' Picotee added
coaxingly. 'I would give anything to see how you look in the midst of
elegant people talking and laughing, and you my own sister all the time,
and me looking on like puss-in-the-corner.'

Ethelberta could hardly resist the entreaty, in spite of her recent
resolution.

'We will leave that to be considered when I come home to-night,' she
said. 'I must hear what father says.'

After dark the same evening a woman, dressed in plain black and wearing a
hood, went to the servants' entrance of Mr. Doncastle's house, and
inquired for Mr. Chickerel. Ethelberta found him in a room by himself,
and on entering she closed the door behind her, and unwrapped her face.