Page:What Maisie Knew (Chicago & New York, Herbert S. Stone & Co., 1897).djvu/39

Rh good and that in spite of her goodness she had never had at all. "Then who will take care of me at papa's?"

"Heaven only knows, my own precious!" Miss Overmore replied, tenderly embracing her. There was indeed no doubt that she was dear to this beautiful friend. What could have proved it better than the fact that before a week was out, notwithstanding their sharp separation and her mother's prohibition and Miss Overmore's scruples and Miss Overmore's promise, the beautiful friend had turned up at her father's? The little lady already engaged to come there by the hour, a fat, dark little lady with a foreign name and dirty fingers, who wore, throughout, a bonnet that had at first given her a deceptive air of not staying long, besides asking her pupil questions that had nothing to do with lessons, questions that Beale Farange himself, when two or three were repeated to him, admitted to be awfully vulgar—this strange apparition faded before the bright creature who had braved everything for Maisie's sake. The bright creature told her little charge frankly what had happened—that she had really been unable to hold out. She had broken her vow to Mrs.