"Now, mother darling, you may have heard, or you may not have heard, that I am in disgrace at Sunnyside. I could not give up Irene, and in consequence the Professor says that I am not to return to the school. He means by that that I am to be in a sense expelled. I felt his words very acutely when he uttered them, for I didn't wish to do anything contrary to your desires; but I felt that I could not give up Irene. I was the first person who had any influence over her, and she was running wild and becoming a torment to her neighbors. I don't know what she would have come to in the end. So I elected, mother darling, to go straight to Lady Jane's instead of to Mrs. Brett, when dear Jane was so ill. Now I am established here at The Follies, and I am not allowed to go back to Sunnyside. Doubtless you know that, and perhaps you are angry with your own Rosamund. But I asked your leave to stay, and you gave it, although you did not know all the circumstances. Will you, dear mother, write to Professor Merriman and ask him to tell you exactly why he wishes to expel me? He will probably give you a very sorry story; but you must believe it or not as you please. I think you know your Rosamund better than he does. I am not going back to Sunnyside, for they would not accept me; but, at the same time, I do not feel at all a disgraced girl; and I should like the Merrimans to be friends with me, and I should still like sometimes to see Jane and Laura Everett, and some of the other girls--not Lucy Merriman, for she is not in the least to my taste; but even she does not greatly matter now that I am no longer living in the house with her. The fact is, dear mother, I could not have been a good girl had I stayed long in the house with Lucy, for she managed in some extraordinary manner to rub me the wrong way. She was so extra good, so punctilious, and so proper; she didn't suit me one bit, and I didn't suit her one little bit either. I was becoming quite a naughty girl. I never was too good--was I, mother dear? Perhaps, darling, I'd have become an awfully naughty Rosamund had it not been for Irene--poor little wild Irene; but she was really and truly much naughtier than I ever thought of being, and her example shocked me and pulled me up, and I resolved to try to be good for her sake.