want, Miss Carrol?" asked Mrs. Pentreddle, abruptly.

"Fifty pounds a year as a nursery governess if I can get it," replied the girl promptly, "or even thirty, so long as I can get a situation. If it were not for dear, kind Mrs. Sellars I don't think I could hold out. She's an angel, and lets me stay here for ten shillings a week until I can get something to do. Bless her!"

"How did you come to this?" asked Mrs. Pentreddle, still abruptly.

Miss Carrol coloured, for she did not like to whimper about her misfortunes to strangers. "It's a long story," she said evasively; "all you need know is that my father was a Colonel in the army, and that when he died his pension ceased and I was left penniless. But I have had a good education, and I hope to get a situation as a governess."

"Won't your friends assist you?"

"I have no friends," said the girl simply; "when I left the world I was brought up in, I left my friends for ever."

"I don't think so; you will go back to them some day," said Mrs. Pentreddle encouragingly, although the expression of her iron face did not soften; "but, meanwhile, if you wish to earn a five-pound note----" she hesitated.

The newspaper slipped from Patricia's lap to the ground and she looked surprised. "I don't understand!"

"If you will do an errand for me I will give you five pounds."

"Oh, I can do an errand for you without taking money."

"I don't ask-you to: this is rather a dangerous errand. But I think you are brave, and I know that you are hard up----"

Patricia interrupted. "I have enough money to go on with," she said, flushing.

"At ten shillings a week!" retorted Mrs. Pentreddle, unpleasantly. "Well, please yourself!"--she turned over on the sofa--"I have given you the chance."

Miss Carrol thought hard during the silence which ensued. Certainly, in her pauper condition, five pounds would be a god-send, and, as she had determined to lay aside all pride when she gave up the position to which her birth entitled her, she considered that she might as well take what she could get at this difficult stage of her fortunes. For five pounds she would do 

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