most of a companion.” Clemence spoke with the calmness of despair, her plump cheeks whitening visibly, her pale eyes showing a flush of red around the lids. “Of course, if it’s my duty, I must go—but I’d as soon be sent to prison! I’m feeling very tired, and thought the holiday would set me up. Now, of course, I shall be worse. Eight weeks alone with Aunt Maria would try anybody’s nerves. I shall be a wreck all winter, and have neuralgia till I’m nearly mad.”

“Nonsense, darling! If you are so tired, the rest and quiet of The Towers will be just what you need; and as we don’t know yet which one of you Aunt Maria will wish as a companion, it is a pity for you all to make yourselves miserable at once. Why not try to forget, and hope for the best! Surely that would be the wiser plan.”

The three girls looked at each other in eloquent silence. Easy to talk. Forget, indeed. As if they could! Mother didn’t really believe what she said. She was making the best of it, and there were occasions when making the best of it seemed just the most aggravating thing one could do.

It was a relief to the girls when Mrs Garnett was summoned from the room on household business, and they were left to themselves. A craving for sympathy was the predominant sensation, and prompted the suggestion, “Let’s wire to the Vernons,” which was followed by a stampede upstairs. The telegraph was a sufficiently new institution to appear a pleasure rather than a toil, even though a message thus dispatched was an infinitely longer and more laborious effort than a run round the terrace, so to-day a leaf was torn from the note-book, a dramatic announcement penned and placed in the hanging-bag, with its jingling bell of warning, and the three girls took it in turns to pull at the cord till the missive arrived at its destination. Attracted by the sound of the bell, Vie and plain Hannah stood at the window awaiting the communication, read over its contents, and stood silent and dismayed. The Garnetts, watching from afar, realised the dramatic nature of that pause, and thrilled in sympathy.

“One of us is going to be sent to prison instead of to the country!”

“Prison!” Vie and plain Hannah wagged their heads over the cipher, hesitated long, pencil in hand, and, finally, in a frenzy of impatience, which refused to be curbed even by loyalty to the telegraph itself, dispatched an urgent summons to speech—

“Come round and talk!”

The Garnetts flew. The Vernons, waiting upon the doorstep, escorted them upstairs to the scantily furnished room which had first been a nursery, then promoted to playroom, and, ultimately, when the more juvenile name wounded the susceptibilities of its inmates, had become definitely and proudly “the study.” The bureau in the corner was Dan’s special property, and might not be touched by so much as a finger-tip. The oak table with three sound legs and a halting fourth, supported by an ancient volume of Good Words, was Vie’s property; John and plain Hannah shared the dining-table, covered with the shabby green baize cloth, which stood in the centre of the room. There were a variety of uncomfortable chairs, an ink-splashed drugget, and red walls covered with pictures which had been banished from other rooms as they acquired the requisite stage of decrepitude and grime.

The five girls surged into the room, faced each other, and burst into eager speech—

“Who’s going to prison?”

“We don’t know. Wish we did!”

“What do you mean by prison?”

“Aunt Maria’s!”

“Lady Maria’s?”

“Lady Maria’s! One of us has to go and stay with her for eight weeks instead of going with you to the sea.”

Vie Vernon collapsed on to the nearest chair, and gasped for breath. “Stu-pendous!” she murmured beneath her breath. Vie had a new word each season which she used to describe every situation, good and bad. The season before it had been “Weird!” this season it was “Stupendous,” and she was thankful for the extra syllable in this moment of emotion. “It’s really true? You mean it in earnest? Why?”

“Thinks it would be a pleasure to us, and that we should be cheery companions. So likely, isn’t it?”

“But—but surely your mother— What does she say?”

“Preaches! Oughtn’t to think of ourselves. Ought to show a right spirit and go.”

“Stu-pendous!” cried Vie once again. Plain Hannah hoisted herself on to the corner of the table, and hunched herself in thought. She really was extraordinarily plain. Looking at her critically, it seemed that everything that should have been a line had turned into a curve, and everything that should have been a curve into a line; she was thick-set, clumsy, awkward in gait, her eyes were small, her mouth was large, she had a meagre wisp of putty-coloured hair, and preposterously thick eyebrows several shades darker in hue, and no eyelashes at all. Friends and relations lavished much pity on poor dear Hannah’s unfortunate looks, but never a sigh did Hannah breathe for herself. She was strong and healthy, her sturdy limbs stood her in good stead in the various games and sports in which she delighted, and she would not have exchanged her prowess therein for all the pink cheeks and golden locks in the world. Hannah’s manner, like her appearance, lacked grace and charm; it was abrupt, forceful, and to the point. She spoke now, chin sunk in her grey flannel blouse, arms wrapped round her knees—

“Is she coming to see you before she chooses, or will it be done by post?”

“She’s coming! Two days next week. Isn’t it too awful? We were so happy—the telegraph up, and the weather jolly, and holidays nearly here. ‘All unsuspecting of their doom the little victims played.’ And then—this! Holidays with Aunt Maria! Even the third of a chance turns me cold with dismay. I couldn’t bear—”

“You won’t need to. She won’t have you. She’ll choose Darsie.”

Darsie squealed in shrillest protest—

“No, no! It’s not fair. She won’t! She can’t! It’s always the eldest or the youngest. I’m the middle—the insignificant middle. Why should she choose me?”

“You are not so modest as a rule! You know perfectly well that strangers always do take more notice of you than any one else. You are always the one who is fussed over and praised.”

“Because I want to be! This time I shan’t. I’ll be just as sulky and horrid as I can for the whole blessed time.”

“You’ll be there anyway, and you can’t alter your face.”

“My fatal beauty!” wailed Darsie, and wrung her hands in impassioned fashion. Then she looked critically from one sister to another, and proceeded to candid criticisms of their charms.

“Clemence is not pretty, but she’s nice! If she did her hair better, and sat up, and had a colour, and didn’t poke her chin, she’d look quite decent. I should think it would be interesting to take some one who needed improving, and see what you could do. Lavender’s gawky, of course, girls are gawky at her age, but I shouldn’t wonder if she grew quite decent-looking in time. Rest and quiet would do wonders!”

“Thank you, indeed! You are kind!” The sisters bridled and tossed their heads, by no means appeased by such prognostications of their future charms. “Certainly if she took you, she might teach you to be modest!”

“Oh, dear, oh, dear, I don’t want any of you to go!” Vie, the peacemaker, rushed to the rescue. She was just sixteen, younger than Clemence, older than Darsie, attached almost equally to the two. Lavender, of course, was quite too young for a companion, but then Lavender and Hannah paired together; if she were absent, Hannah at a loose end would demand entrance into those three-sided conferences which made the joy of life. The fear of such an incursion made