mere child with no knowledge of the great animating forces of life and of the mysteries behind them, she wondered why she had done this thing; what it was that forced her to do it. For she knew well that something had forced her, something outside of herself, as she understood herself. It was as though another entity that was in her and yet not herself had taken possession of her and made her act as uninfluenced, she never would have acted. Thus she pondered in her calm fashion, then, being able to make nothing of the business, shrugged her shoulders and let it go by. After all it mattered nothing since Godfrey had dreamed that the ghost of his mother had visited him and would not suspect her of being that ghost, and she was certain that never would she do such a thing again. The trouble was that she had done it once and that the deed signified some change in her which her childish mind could not understand. 

 On reaching the Hall, or rather shortly afterwards, she saw her father who was waiting for the carriage in which to go to the station to meet some particularly important week-end guest. He asked if she had brought any answer to his note to Mr. Knight, and she told him that she had left it in the schoolroom, as she called the refectory, because he was out. 

 “I hope he will get it,” grumbled Mr. Blake. “One of my friends who is coming down to-night thinks he understands architecture and I want the parson to show him over the Abbey House. Indeed that’s why he has come, for you see he is an American who thinks a lot of such old things.” 

 “Well, it is beautiful, isn’t it, Father?” she said. “Even I felt that it would be easy to learn in that big old room with a roof like that of a church.” 

 An idea struck him. 

 “Would you like to go to school there, Isobel?” 

 “I think so, Father, as I must go to school somewhere and I hate those horrible governesses.” 

 “Well,” he replied, “you couldn’t throw inkpots at the holy Knight, as you did at Miss Hook. Lord! what a rage she was in,” he added with a chuckle. “I had to pay her £5 for a new dress. But it was better to do that than to risk a County Court action.” 

 Then the carriage came and he departed. 

 The upshot of it all was that Isobel became another of Mr. Knight’s pupils. When Mr. Blake suggested the arrangement to his wife, she raised certain objections, among them that 

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