Chapter One.

The “Pampered Pet.”

“There goes the ‘Pampered Pet’ again! Got its little keeper with it, as usual. Why don’t they lead her by a chain, and be done with it?”

Miles stood by the schoolroom window, hands jingling in pockets, as he surveyed a prospect, sufficiently grey and drear to make any diversity doubly welcome, and at his words there came the sound of a general pushing-back of chairs, as the four other occupants of the room dashed forward to share in the view.

They jostled each other with the scant courtesy which brothers and sisters are apt to show each other in early days; five big boys and girls, ranging between the ages of eight and nineteen. Miles kept his central position by reason of superior strength, a vigorous dig of his pointed elbow being enough to keep trespassers at a distance. Betty darted before him and nimbly dropped on her knees, the twins stood on either side of the window-sill, while poor Pam grumbled and fretted in the background, dodging here and there to try all positions in turn, and finding each as unsatisfactory as the last.

The Square gardens looked grey and sodden with the desolation of autumn in a city, and the road facing the window was empty, except for two female figures—a lady, and a girl of sixteen, who were slowly approaching the corner. The lady was dressed in black, the girl was noticeably smart, in a pretty blue costume, with dainty boots on her tiny feet, and a fur cap worn at the fashionable angle on her golden head.

“That’s a new dress,—the fifth I’ve seen her in this month!” sighed Betty enviously. “Wearing it on an afternoon like this, too. The idea! Serve her right if it were soaked through!”

“Look at her mincing over the puddles! She’d rather go a mile out of her way than get a splash on those precious boots. I’m sure by the look of them that they pinch her toes! I am glad you girls don’t make ninnies of yourselves by wearing such stupid things.”

“Can’t! Feet too big!” mumbled Jill, each cheek bulging in turn with the lump of toffee which she was mechanically moving from side to side, so as to lengthen the enjoyment as much as possible.

“Can’t! Too poor! Only four shillings to last out till the end of the quarter!” sighed Betty, dolorous again.

“Boots! Boots! What boots? Let me see her boots. It’s mean! You won’t let me see a thing!” cried Pam, pushing her shaggy head round Miles’ elbow, and craning forward on the tip of her toes. “I say! She’s grander than ever to-day, isn’t she?”

“Look at the umbrella! About as thick as a lead pencil!” scoffed Jill, flattening her nose against the pane. “Aunt Amy had one like that when she came to stay, and I opened it, because mother says it spoils them to be left squeezed up, and she was as mad as a hatter. She twisted at it a good ten minutes before she would take it out again. She’d never get mine straight! I’ve carried things in it till the wires bulge out like hoops. An umbrella is made for use; it’s bosh pretending it’s an ornament. ... They are going a toddle round the Square between the showers for the benefit of the Pet’s complexion. I’m glad I haven’t got one to bother about!”

“True for you!” agreed Miles, with brotherly candour. “You are as brown as a nigger, and the Pet is like a big wax-doll—yellow hair, blue eyes, pink cheeks, all complete. Not a bad-looking doll, either. I passed quite close to her one day, and she looked rattling. She’ll be a jolly pretty girl one of these days.”

“Oh, if you admire that type. Personally, I don’t care for niminy-piminies. You never see her speaking, but I daresay if you poked her in the right places she would bleat out ‘Mam-ma! Pa-pa!’ ... Now watch!” cried Betty dramatically. “When she gets to the corner, she will peer up at this window beneath her eyelashes, and mince worse than ever when she sees us watching. Don’t shove so, Pam! You can see quite well where you are. Now look! She’s going to raise her head.”

The five heads pressed still more curiously against the pane, and five pairs of eyes were fixed unblinkingly upon the young girl who was daintily picking her way round the corner of the Square. The fur cap left her face fully exposed to view, and, true to Betty’s prophecy, as she reached a certain point in the road she turned her head over her shoulder and shot a quick glance at the window overhead. Quicker than lightning the pretty head went round again, and the pink cheeks grew crimson at the sight of those five eager faces watching her every movement.

Jack and Jill burst into loud laughter, Betty’s upper lip curled derisively, but Miles’ thin face showed an answering flush of colour, and he backed into the room, exclaiming angrily—

“I say, this is too much of a good thing! I don’t know what you all mean by swarming round me wherever I go! Why can’t you leave a fellow alone? Can’t I even look out of the window without having you all on my back? A nice effect it must have to see the whole place blocked up, as if we were staring at a Lord Mayor’s show!”

Betty sat down by the table and took up the blouse on which she had been working for the last three months. The sleeves had been taken out and replaced twice over, and the collar-band obstinately refused to come right. By the time it was finished it would be hopelessly out of date, which Betty considered as one of the many contrary circumstances of life which continually thwarted her good endeavours.

“Don’t worry yourself. She will enjoy being stared at!” she said coldly. “She knows we watch her coming in and out, and shows off all her little tricks for our benefit. She’s the most conceited, stuck-up, affected little wretch I ever saw, without a thought in her head but her clothes, and her own importance. I wouldn’t have anything to do with her for the world!”

“Jolly good thing then that you are never likely to get a chance! Her people will never trouble to call upon us; they are much too high and mighty. That’s no reason, though, why you should be so down on the poor little soul. I should have thought that you would have felt sorry for her, cooped up with that old governess all her time, with not a soul to keep her company! But girls are such cads—they never play fair.”

Miles strode out of the room in a fume, and Betty’s lips compressed themselves into a thin straight line, the meaning of which the others knew full well. To incur Miles’ displeasure was Betty’s bitterest punishment, and the “Pampered Pet” was not likely to fare any better at her hands in consequence of his denouncement. Jill beckoned furtively to Jack. There was no chance of any more fun in the schoolroom now that Miles had departed, and Betty was in the sulks; it would be wise to go and disport themselves elsewhere. They left the room arm-in-arm, heads almost touching, as they whispered and giggled together, the most devoted pair of twins that ever existed, and eight-year-old Pam leant her elbows on the table and stared fixedly at her big sister.

Betty was seventeen, nearly grown-up, inasmuch as she had left school, and now took classes to complete her education. Her blue serge dress came down to her ankles, and she made a gallant attempt to “do up” her hair in the style of the period. Mrs Trevor considered the style too elaborate for such a young girl, but after all it did not much matter what was aimed at, since every morning someone exclaimed innocently, “You’ve done your hair a new way, Betty!” and was fully justified in the remark. One day Betty’s ambition ran to curls and waves, and she appeared at the breakfast-table with a fuzz worthy of a negress. The next day better judgment