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out walking then?”
    ” I went for a walk with Miss Alvean. We lost each other in the woods.”
    ” Ah yes. So her run away, did her.” Mrs. Soady shook her head, as she came to the gate trailing her ball of wool behind her.
    ” I expect she’ll find her way home,” I said.
    ” My dear life, yes. There ain’t an inch of them woods Miss Alvean don’t know. Oh, I see you’ve got yourself a piece of betony. Like as not ‘tis as well.”
    ” Miss Alvean picked it and insisted on putting it in my buttonhole.”
    ” There now! You be friends already.”
    ” I heard the little girl, Gilly, singing in the woods,” I said.
    ” I don’t doubtee. Her’s always singing in the woods.”
    ” I called to her but she didn’t come.”
    ” Timid as a doe, she be.”
    ” Well, I think I’ll be getting along. Goodbye, Mrs. Soady.”
    ” Good day to ‘ee. Miss.”
    I went up the drive, past the hydrangeas and the fuchsias. I realised I was straining my ears for the sound of singing, but there was no sound but that of an occasional small animal in the undergrowth.
    I was hot and tired when I reached the house. I went straight up to my room and rang for water and, when I had washed and brushed my hair, went into the schoolroom where tea was waiting for me.
    Alvean was at the table; she looked demure and made no reference to our afternoon’s adventure; nor did I. After tea I said to her: ” I don’t know what rules your other governesses made, but I propose we do our lessons in the morning, have a break between luncheon and tea, and then start again from five o’clock until six, when we will read together.”
    Alvean did not answer; she was studying me intently.
    Then suddenly she said: ” Miss, do you like my name? Have you ever known anyone else called Alvean?”
    I said I liked the name and had never heard it before.
    ” It’s Cornish. Do you know what it means?”
    ” I have no idea.”
    ” Then I will tell you. My father can speak and write Cornish.” She looked wistful when she spoke of her father, and I thought: He at least is one person she admires and for whose approval she is eager.
    She went on: ” In Cornish, Alvean means Little Alice.”
    ” Oh!” I said, and my voice shook a little.
    She came to me and placed her hands on my knees; she looked up into my face and said solemnly: ” You see. Miss, my mother was Alice. She isn’t here any more. But I was called after her. That’s why I am little Alice.”
    I stood up because I could no longer bear the scrutiny of the child. I went to the window.
    ” Look,” I said, ” two of the peacocks are on the lawn.”
    She was standing at my elbow. ” They’ve come to be fed. Greedy things!
    Daisy will soon be coming with their peas. They know it. “
    I was not seeing the peacocks on the lawn. I was remembering the mocking eyes of the man on the train, the man who had warned me that I should have to beware of Alice.
     
    Three days after my arrival at Mount Mellyn, the Master of j the house returned. | I had slipped into a routine as far as my duties were conI cerned.
    Alvean and I did lessons each morning after breakfast, I and apart from an ever present desire to disconcert me by | asking questions which, I knew, she hoped I should not be able | to answer, I found her a good pupil. It was not that she meant :
    to please me; it was merely that her desire for knowledge was :
    so acute that she could not deny it. I believe that there was :
    some plot in her head that if she could learn all I knew she could then confront her father with a question : Since there is no more Miss can teach me, is there any point in her remaining here?
    I often thought of tales I had heard of governesses whose declining years were made happy by those whom they had taught as children. No such happy fate would be mine—at least as far as Alvean was concerned.
    I had been shocked when I first heard the name of Alice mentioned, and after the daylight had passed I would