I.

"Here you are, miss," said the red-faced cabby, putting his head in at the cab window, "this is Miss Melford's school."

It was a large, many windowed, white house on Hertford Green, in sight of the famous spires of Silverbridge, and was for some six months to be both home and school to me, Gloria Dene.

I was late in my arrival, and I was tired, for I had come all the way from Erlingham in the heart of Norfolk, and moreover, I was hungry, and just a little homesick, and already wanted to return to the old homestead and to Uncle Gervase and Aunt Ducie, who had taken the place of my parents.

The cabman gave a loud rat-a-tat with the lion-headed knocker, and in due course a rosy-faced servant maid opened the door and ushered me in.

Then she preceded me through a broad flagged hall, lit by crimson lamps. And as I went I heard a sweet and thrilling voice singing,

"Home, home, sweet, sweet home, Be it ever so humble there's no place like home."

The words naturally appealed to me, and I exclaimed:

"How lovely! Who is singing?" only to be told that it was Mamselle Narda, the music mistress.

I thought of the nightingale which sang in our rose bush on summer nights at home, and found myself wondering what Mamselle was like.

The next day I saw her--Bernarda Torres; she was a brown beauty, with dark rippling hair, soft dark eyes, and a richly soft complexion, which put one in mind of a ripe peach on a southern wall.

She was of Spanish extraction, her father (a fruit merchant) hailing from Granada, her mother from Seville. Narda's path had been strewn with roses, until a bank failure interrupted a life of happiness, and then sorrows had come in battalions. Mamselle had really turned her silver notes into silver coins for the sake of "Home, Sweet Home."

This love of home it was which united Narda and myself. She told me all about the house at home, about her brother, Carlos, and his pictures, and _maman_, who made point lace, and Olla Podrida, and little Nita, who was _douce et belle_. And I, in my turn, told her of the thatched homestead near the Broads, of the bay and mulberry trees, of Aunt Ducie's sweet kind face, and Uncle Gervase's early silvered hair.

And she called me "little sister," and promised to spend her next vacation where the heron fishes and the robin pipes in fair and fresh East Anglia.

But one May morning, when the lilacs in our playground were full of sweet-scented, purple plumes, a bolt fell from the blue. A letter came to Narda telling her of her mother's failing health, her father's apathy, her brother's despair.

"It is enough," said Mamselle, "I see my duty! An impresario once told me that my destiny was to sing in public. I will do it for 'Home, Sweet Home,' I will be La Narda the singer, instead of Miss Melford's Mamselle. God who helps the blind bird build its nest will help me to save mine."