"Thank you," said Hester again. She lay quite still for several minutes with her eyes closed. Her face looked intensely unhappy. Cecil was not easily repelled and she guessed only too surely that Hester's proud heart was suffering much. She was puzzled, however, how to approach her, and had almost made up her mind to go away and beg of kind-hearted Miss Danesbury to see if she could come and do something, when through the open window there came the shrill sweet laughter and the eager, high-pitched tones of some of the youngest children in the school. A strange quiver passed over Hester's face at the sound; she sat up in bed, and gasped out in a half-strangled voice: