Fired by their interest in her recitals she was tempted to spread herself.

At first almost unconsciously, for by instinct she was truthful, she embroidered fact, magnifying her office not only in respect of her ex-pupil Damaris but of Damaris' father also.

She represented herself as indispensable to both parent and child, until she more than half believed that flattering fiction.

She began to reckon herself an essential element in the establishment at The Hard, the pivot indeed upon which it turned.

Whereupon a rather morbid craving for the Miss Minetts' society developed in her.