and both her parents will be in India, so you must all be kind to the poor little soul, and give her a hearty welcome.”

Silence! Nobody had a word to say in response to this remark; but the eyes of the young people met furtively across the table, and Mr Asplin felt that they were only waiting until their seniors should withdraw before bursting into eager conversation.

“Better leave them to have it out by themselves,” he whispered significantly to his wife; then added aloud, “Well, we won’t interrupt you any longer. Don’t turn the play-hour into work, Rob! You will study all the better for a little relaxation. You have proved the truth of that axiom, Oswald—eh?” and he went laughing out of the room, while Oswald held the door open for his wife, smiling assent in lazy fashion.

“Another girl!” he exclaimed, as he reseated himself on his chair, and looked with satisfaction at his well-shod feet. “This is an unexpected blow! A sister of the redoubtable Saville! From all I have heard of him, I should imagine a female edition would be rather a terror in a quiet household. I never saw Saville,—what sort of a fellow was he to look at, don’t you know?”

Mellicent reflected.

“He had a nose!” she said solemnly. Then, as the others burst into hilarious laughter, “Oh, it’s no use shrieking at me; I mean what I say,” she insisted. “A big nose—like Wellington’s! When people are very clever, they always have big noses. I imagine Peggy small, with a little thin face, because she was born in India, and lived there until she was six years old, and a great big nose in the middle—”

“Sounds appetising,” said Maxwell shortly. “I don’t! I imagine Peggy like her mother, with blue eyes and brown hair. Mrs Saville is awfully pretty. I have seen her often, and if her daughter is like her—”

“I don’t care in the least how she looks,” said Esther severely. “It’s her character that matters. Indian children are generally spoiled, and if she has been to a boarding-school she may give herself airs. Then we shall quarrel. I am not going to be patronised by a girl of fourteen. I expect she will be Mellicent’s friend, not mine.”

“I wonder what sums she is in!” said Mellicent dreamily. “Rob! what do you think about it? Are you glad or sorry? You haven’t said anything yet.”

Robert raised his eyes from his microscope, and looked her up and down, very much as a big Newfoundland dog looks at the terrier which disturbs its slumber.

“It’s nothing to me,” he said loftily. “She may come if she likes.” Then, with sudden recollection, “Does she learn the violin? Because we have already one girl in this house who is learning the violin, and life won’t be worth living if there is a second.”

He tucked his big notebook under his chin as he spoke, and began sawing across it with a pencil, wagging his head and rolling his eyes, in imitation of Mellicent’s own manner of practising, producing at the same time such long-drawn, catlike wails from between his closed lips as made the listeners shriek with laughter. Mellicent, however, felt bound to expostulate.

“It’s not the tune at all,” she cried loudly. “Not like any of my pieces; and if I do roll my eyes, I don’t rumple up my hair and pull faces at the ceiling, as some people do, and I know who they are, but I am too polite to say so! I hope Peggy will be my friend, because then there will be two of us, and you won’t dare to tease me any more. When Arthur was here, a boy pulled my hair, and he carried him upstairs and held his head underneath the shower-bath.”

“I’ll pull it again, and see if Peggy will do the same,” said Rob pleasantly; and poor Mellicent stared from one smiling face to another, conscious that she was being laughed at, but unable to see the point of the joke.

“When Peggy comes,” she said, in an injured tone, “I hope she will be sympathetic. I’m the youngest, and I think you ought all to do what I want; instead of which you make fun, and laugh among yourselves, and send me messages. For instance, when Max wanted his stamps brought down—”

Maxwell passed his big hand over her hair and face, then, reversing the direction, rubbed up the point of the little snub nose.

“Never mind, chubby, your day is over! We will make Peggy the message-boy now. Peggy will be a nice, meek little girl, who will like to run messages for her betters! She shall be my fag, and attend to me. I’ll give her my stamps to sort.”

“I rather thought of having her for fag myself; we can’t admit a girl to our study unless she makes herself useful,” said Oswald languidly; whereupon Rob banged the notebook on the table with clanging decision.

“Peggy belongs to me,” he announced firmly. “It’s no use you two fellows quarrelling. That matter is settled once for all. Peggy will be my fag; I’ve barleyed her for myself, and you have nothing to say in the matter.”

But Esther tossed her head with an air of superior wisdom.

“Wait till she comes,” she said sagely. “If Peggy is anything like her brother, you may spare yourself the trouble of planning as to what she must or must not do. It is waste of time. Peggy will be mistress over us all!”