"You can't treat your guardian like that! Do tell me what it's all about!" And bending forward, she laid her two small hands entreatingly on the girl's knee.

She looked so frail and pitiful as she did so, in her plain black, that Helena was momentarily touched.

For the first time her new chaperon appeared to her as something else than a mere receiver into which, or at which, it suited her to talk.

She laid her own hand soothingly on Mrs.Friend's.
"Of course I'll tell you.

I really don't mean to be nasty to you.