confusion reigned in the Beverley household. It is no light matter to decide what you need to take abroad, what you wish to lock up at home, and to leave your establishment in apple-pie order for the use of strangers. Inventories of furniture, linen, blankets, and china had to be written and checked, a rigorous selection made of the things to be packed, and the luggage cut down to the limits prescribed by the railway companies. Poor Mrs. Beverley was nearly worn out when at last the overflowing boxes were fastened, the bags and hold-alls were strapped, and the taxis, which were to take them to the station, arrived at the door. Tears stood in her eyes as she crossed the threshold of her own house.

"It's a tremendous wrench!" she fluttered.

"Never mind, Mums!" consoled Irene, linking her arm in her mother's. "It's an adventure, and we all want to go. You'll love it when we're once off. No, don't look back: it's unlucky! Your bag's in the cab; I saw Jessie put it in. Hooray for Italy, say I, and a good riddance to smoky old London! In another couple of days we shall be down south and turning into Romeos and Juliets as fast as we can. You'll see Dad learning a guitar and strumming it under your balcony, and serenading you no end."

"Hardly at his time of life!" said Mrs. Beverley; but the joke amused her, she wiped her eyes, and, as Irene had hoped and intended, stepped smiling into the waiting taxi, and left her old home with laughter instead of with tears.

In her fourteen years of experience Irene had traveled very little, so the migration to Italy was a fairy journey so far as she was concerned. To catch the boat express they had made an early start, and they breakfasted in the train between London and Dover. It was fun to sit in comfortable padded armchairs, eating fish or ham and eggs, and watching the landscape whirling past; fun to see the deft-handed waiters nipping about with trays or teacups; and fun to observe the occupants of the other tables in the car. There was a fat, good-natured Frenchman who amused Irene, a languid English lady who annoyed her, an elderly gourmand who excited her disgust, and a neighboring party, one member of which at least aroused her interest and caused her to cast cautious side glances in the direction of the next table. This center of attraction was a small girl about eight or nine years of age, a dainty elfin little person with bewitching blue eyes and a mop of short, flaxen curls. She was evidently well used to traveling, for she would lift a tiny finger to summon the waiter, and gave him her orders with all the savoir-faire of an experienced diner-out. Perhaps her clear-toned treble voice was a trifle too high-pitched for the occasion, and would have been better had it been duly modulated, but her parents seemed proud of her conversational powers and allowed her to talk for the benefit of anybody within ear-shot. That she excited comment was manifest, for many looks were turned to her corner. The criticisms on her were complimentary or the reverse. "Isn't she perfectly sweet?" gushed a young lady at Irene's left. "Sweet? She ought to be in the nursery instead of showing off here!" came a tart voice in reply, from some one whose face was invisible but whose back and shoulders expressed an attitude of strong disapproval. "Hope we shan't be boxed up with her in the same carriage to Paris! I vote we give her a wide berth at Calais."

Irene laughed softly. The little flaxen-haired girl attracted her; she felt she would have gravitated towards her compartment rather than have avoided her. But traveling companions were evidently more a matter of chance than choice, for the crowd that turned out of the train at Dover became mixed and mingled like the colored bits of glass in a kaleidoscope. Irene realized that for the moment the one supreme and breathless object in life was to cling to the rest of her family, and not to get separated from them or lost, as they pushed through narrow barriers, showed tickets and passports, traversed gangways, and finally found themselves on board the Channel steamer bound for France. Father, who had made the crossing many times, scrambled instantly for deck-chairs, and installed his party comfortably in the lee of a funnel, where they would be sheltered from the wind. Mrs. Beverley, who had inspected the ladies' saloon below, sank on her seat, and tucked a rug round her knees with a sigh of relief.

"It will be the 'Black Hole of Calcutta' downstairs," she remarked. "I'd rather stay on deck however cold it is. The mother of the wee yellow-haired lassie is lying down already, evidently prepared to be ill. The stewardess says we shall have a choppy passage. She earns her tips, poor woman! Thanks, Vincent! Yes, I'd like the air-cushion, please, and that plaid out of the hold-all. No, I won't have a biscuit now; I prefer to wait till we get on terra firma again."

Irene, sitting warmly wrapped up on her deck-chair, watched the white cliffs of Dover recede from her gaze as the vessel left the port and steamed out into the Channel. It was the last of "Old England," and she knew that much time must elapse before she would see the shores of her birthplace again. What would greet her in the foreign country to which she was going? New sights, new sounds, new interests—perhaps new friends? The thought of it all was an exhilaration. Others might seem sad at a break with former associations, but as for herself she was starting a fresh life, and she meant to get every scrap of enjoyment out of it that was practically possible.

The stewardess had prophesied correctly when she described the voyage as "choppy." The steamer certainly pitched and tossed in a most uncomfortable fashion, and it was only owing to the comparative steadiness of her seat amidships that Irene escaped that most wretched of complaints, mal de mer. She sat very still, with rather white cheeks, and refused Vincent's offers of biscuits and chocolates: her sole salvation, indeed, was not to look at the heaving sea, but to keep her eyes fixed upon the magazine which she made a pretense of reading. Fortunately the Dover-Calais crossing is short, and, before Neptune had claimed her as one of his victims, they were once more in smooth waters and steaming into harbor.

Then again the kaleidoscope turned, and the crowd of passengers remingled and walked over gangways, and along platforms and up steep steps, and jostled through the Customs, and said "Rien à déclarer" to the officials, who peeped inside their bags to find tea or tobacco, and had their luggage duly chalked, and showed their passports once more, and finally, after a bewildering half-hour of bustle and hustle, found themselves, with all their belongings intact, safely in the train for Paris. Irene had caught brief glimpses of the child whom she named "Little Flaxen," whose mother, in a state of collapse, had been almost carried off the vessel, but revived when she was on dry land again: a maid was in close attendance, and two porters were stowing their piles of hand-luggage inside a specially reserved compartment. "The cross lady won't be boxed up with them at any rate," said Irene. "I saw her get in lower down the train."

It was dark when they arrived in Paris, so Irene had only a confused impression of an immense railway station, of porters in blue blouses, of a babel of noise and shouting in a foreign language which seemed quite different from the French she had learned at school, of clinging very closely to Father's arm, of a drive through lighted streets, of a hotel where dinner was served in a salon surrounded by big mirrors, then bed, which seemed the best thing in the world, for she was almost too weary to keep her eyes open.

"If every day is going to be like this we shall be