"If you prefer it, I will myself write a line to be given to Mr.Elgar when he calls.

Of course, you shall see what I write." Cecily turned away, and stood in struggle with herself.

She had not foreseen a conflict of this kind.

Surprise, and probably vexation, she was prepared for; irony, argument, she was quite ready to face; but it had not entered her mind that Mrs.Lessingham would invoke authority to oppose her.

Such a step was alien to all the habits of their intercourse, to the spirit of her education.