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 vivacious¹ 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 fixed² for meeting Lucy Merriman had not quite arrived. She yawned and stretched herself luxuriously³.

"I shall go to bed. Our work begins to-morrow. What are you sitting up for, Rosamund?"

"I am going out again in a few minutes," said Rosamund.

"Are you indeed?" cried Jane. "Then may I come with you? I shan't be a bit sleepy if I am walking out in the moonlight. But I thought——However, I suppose rules don't begin to-day."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I heard Miss Archer⁴ say that we were not to go out after half-past nine unless by special permission."

"Oh, well, as you remarked, rules don't begin until to-morrow, so I can go out at any hour I like to-night."

"I wonder why?" said Jane, and she looked up with a languid curiosity, which was all she could ever rise to, in her light-blue eyes.

Rosamund knelt by the window-sill; she put her arms on it and gazed out into the summer night. She heard people talking below her in the shrubbery. A few words fell distinctly on her ears, "I hate her, and I shall never be her friend!" and then the voices died away in the distance.

Jane had risen at that moment to fetch a novel which she was reading, so she did not hear what Rosamund had heard.

Rosamund's young face was now very white. There was a steady, pursed-up expression about her mouth. She suddenly slammed down the window with some force.

"What is it, Rose? What is the matter? Why shouldn't we have the window open on a hot night like, this?"

"Because I like it to be shut. You must put up with me as I am," said Rosamund. "I will open it if you wish in a few minutes. I have changed my mind, I am not going out. I shall go to bed. I have a severe headache."

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