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“A beggar!” the child said at last. “A beggar!... Then why don’t you come and live with me at Plenhöel instead of with them in England?” There was extraordinary contempt in the way she said “them.” “I have only another year to stay here,” she passionately pleaded, “and every single thing I own will be half yours, Loris darling—every single thing!”

Eyes and hands uplifted, she gazed imploringly at Laurence, and for an instant a softer expression flitted across the latter’s somewhat sulky face.

“They would not let me do that—at any rate, not until I come of age,” she asserted. “No, decidedly not.... And, what’s more, I would not accept charity from your people, who are no relations of mine.”

Marguerite looked at her friend in positive amazement. “Charity!” she indignantly remonstrated; and then violently she cast herself prone upon the green border of the allée, kicking her tiny toes into the turf. “Charity indeed!” she angrily cried from within the shelter of her intertwined arms. “Charity—to you!”