"i've come to say good-by to you, sis"

THE PRINCESS

OF THE SCHOOL

---

By ANGELA BRAZIL

---

Author of

"The Luckiest Girl in the School,"

"The Harum-Scarum Schoolgirl,"

"A Popular Schoolgirl,"

"The Head Girl at the Gables."

Illustrated by Frank Wiles.

---

A. L. BURT COMPANY

Publishers New York

Published by arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes Company

Printed in U. S. A.

Copyright, 1920, by

Frederick A. Stokes Company

All rights reserved

First published in the United States of America, 1921

Contents

THE PRINCESS OF THE SCHOOL

chapter i

The Ingleton Family

On a certain morning, just a week before[1]
Christmas, the little world of school at Chilcombe
Hall was awake and stirring at an unusually
early hour. Long before the slightest hint of
dawn showed in the sky the lamps were lighted
in the corridors, maids were scuttling about,
bringing in breakfast, and Jones, the gardener,
assisted by his eldest boy, a sturdy grinning
urchin of twelve, was beginning the process of
carrying down piles of hand-bags and hold-alls,
and stacking them on a cart which was waiting in
the drive outside.

Miss Walters, dreading the Christmas rush on
the railway, had determined to take time by the
forelock, and meant to pack off her pupils by the
first available trains, trusting they would most of
them reach their destinations before the overcrowding
became a serious problem in the traffic.[2]
The pupils themselves offered no objections to
this early start. The sooner they reached home
and began the holidays, so much the better from
their point of view. It was fun to get up by
lamp-light, when the stars were still shining in
the sky; fun to find that rules were relaxed, and
for once they might chatter and talk as they
pleased; fun to run unreproved along the passages,
sing on the stairs, and twirl one another
round in an impromptu dance in the hall.

The particular occupants of the Blue Bedroom
had been astir even before the big bell clanged
for rising, so they stole a march over rival dormitories,
performed their toilets, packed their hand-bags,
strapped their wraps, and proceeded downstairs
to the dining-hall, where cups and plates
were just being laid upon the breakfast-table. It
was quite superfluous energy on the part of
Lilias, Dulcie, Gowan, and Bertha, for as a matter
of fact not one of them was on the list of
earliest departures, but the excitement of the general
exodus had awakened them as absolutely as
the advent of Santa Claus on Christmas mornings.
They stood round the newly-lighted fire,
warming their hands, chatting, and hailing fresh
arrivals who hurried into the hall.

"You going by the 6.30, Edith? You lucker!
My train doesn't start till ten! I begged and
implored Miss Walters to let me leave by the[3]
early one, and wait at the junction, but she would
not hear of it, so I've got to stop here kicking my
heels, and watch you others whisked away. Isn't
it a grisly shame?"

Gowan's round rosy face was drawn into a decided
pout, and her blue eyes were full of self-pity.
She had to be sorry for her own grievance,
because nobody else had either time or much inclination
to sympathize; they were all far too
much excited about their own concerns.

"Well, you'll get off sometime, I suppose,"
returned Edith airily. "There are twelve of us,
all going together as far as Colminster. We
mean to cram into one carriage if we can. Don't
suppose the train will be full, as it's so early. I
thought you were coming with us, Bertha, but
Miss Hardy says you're not!"

"Dad changed his mind at the last minute, and
promised to send the car to fetch me. It's only
forty miles by road, you know, though it takes
hours by the train. He seemed to think I should
lose either myself or my luggage at Sheasby Junction,
and it is a horrid place to change. You
never can get hold of a porter, and you don't
know which platform you'll start from."

"How are you going home, Lilias?" asked
Noreen, who with several other girls had joined
the group at the fire.

Lilias, squatting on the fender, stretching two[4]
cold hands towards the blazing sticks, looked up
brightly.

"We're riding! Astley and Elton are to fetch
Rajah and Peri over for us. Grandfather said
they needed exercise. I don't suppose he'd have
thought of it, only Dulcie wrote to Cousin Clare
and begged her to ask him. Won't it be just
splendiferous? We haven't had a ride the whole
term, and I'm pining to see Rajah!"

"Grandfather had promised to let us ride to
school in September," put in Dulcie, "but Everard
and a friend of his commandeered the horses
and went to Rasebury, so we couldn't have them,
and we were so disappointed. I do hope nothing
will happen to stop them this time! Everard
was to arrive home yesterday, so he'll be before
us. I shan't ever be friends with him again if he
plays us such a mean trick!"

"It's 'coach—carriage—wheelbarrow—truck,'
it seems to me, the way we're all trotting
home!" laughed Edith. "If I could have my
choice, I'd sprint on a scooter!"

"Next term we'll travel by private aeroplane,
specially chartered!" scoffed Noreen.

"I don't mind how I go, so long as I get off
somehow!" chirped Truie. "Thank goodness,
here come the urns at last! I began to think
breakfast would never be ready. We want to
have time to eat something before we start."

[5]Miss Walters' excellent arrangements had left
ample time for the healthy young appetites to be
satisfied before the taxis arrived at the door to
convey the first contingent of pupils to the station.
Sixteen girls, under the escort of a mistress,
took their departure in the highest of spirits,
packed as tightly as sardines, but managing to
wave good-bys. Their boxes had been dispatched
the previous day, their hand-bags had
gone on by cart before breakfast and would be
waiting for them at the station, where Jones, that
most useful factotum, would, by special arrangement
with the station-master, be taking their
tickets before the ordinary opening of the booking-office.

Though the departure of sixteen girls made
somewhat of a clearance at Chilcombe Hall, Miss
Walters' labors were not yet over. There was
a train at eight and a train at ten, and the young
people who had to wait for these found it difficult
to know how to employ the interval until it
was their turn to enter the taxis. By nine o'clock
Lilias and Dulcie, ready in their riding habits,
were looking eagerly out of the dining-hall window
along the drive which led to the gate.

"I know Elton would be early," said Dulcie.
"It's always Astley who stops and fusses. It
was the same when Everard went cub-hunting.
You don't think there's a hitch, do you?" (uneasily).[6]
"Shall we get a horrid yellow envelope
and a message to say 'Come by train'? It would
be too bad, and yet, it's as likely as not!"

Dulcie's fears, which in the course of twenty
minutes' waiting and watching had almost conjured
up the telegraph boy with his scarlet bicycle
and brown leather wallet, were suddenly dispelled,
however, by a brisk sound of trotting, and
a moment later appeared the welcome sight of
her grandfather's two grooms riding up to the
house, each leading a spare horse by the rein.
Those schoolfellows who had not yet departed
to the station came to the door to witness the
interesting start. A sleek, well-groomed horse is
always a beautiful object, and the girls decided
unanimously that Lilias and Dulcie were lucky to
be carried home in so delightful a fashion. They
watched them admiringly as they mounted.
Edith stroked Rajah's smooth neck as she said
good-by to her friends.

"Riding beats motoring in my opinion," she
vouchsafed, "though of course you can go farther
in a car. Perhaps I shall pass you on the
road."

"No, you won't, for we're taking a short cut
across country. We always choose by-lanes if
we can. Write and tell me if you get a motor-scooter.
They sound fearfully thrillsome.
Good-by, see you again in January!"

[7]"Good-by! and a merry Christmas to everybody!"
added Dulcie, turning on her saddle to
wave a parting salute to those who were left behind
on the doorstep.

The two girls walked their horses down the
drive, but once out on the level road they trotted
on briskly, with the grooms riding behind. They
formed quite a little cavalcade as they turned
from the hard motor track down the grassy lane
where a dilapidated sign-post pointed to Ringfield
and Cheverley. It was a distance of seven good
country miles from Chilcombe Hall to Cheverley
Chase, and, as the events of this story center
largely round Lilias and Dulcie, there will be
ample time to describe them while they are wending
their way through the damp of the misty
December morning, up from the low-lying river
level to the hill country that stretched beyond.

Lilias was just sixteen, and very pretty, with
gray eyes, fair hair, a straight nose, and two
bewitching dimples when she smiled. These
dimples were rather misleading, for they gave
strangers the impression that Lilias was humorous,
which was entirely a mistake: it was Dulcie
who was the humorist in reality, Dulcie whose
long lashes dropped over her shy eyes, and who
never could say a word for herself in public,
though in the society of intimate friends she could
be amusing enough. Dulcie, at fourteen, seemed[8]
years younger than Lilias; she did not wish to
grow up too soon, and thankfully tipped all responsibilities
on to her elder sister. Cousin
Clare always said there were undiscovered depths
in Dulcie's character, but they were slow in development,
and at present she was a childish little
person with a pink baby face, an affection for
fairy tales, and even a sneaking weakness for her
discarded dolls. Life, that to Lilias seemed a
serious business, was a joyous venture to Dulcie;
she had a happy knack of shaking off the unpleasant
things, and throwing the utmost possible
power of enjoyment into the nice ones. If innocent
happiness is the birthright of childhood,
she clung to it steadfastly, and had not yet
exchanged it for the red pottage of worldly
wisdom.

Ever since Father and Mother, in the great
disaster of the wreck of the Titanic, had gone
down together into the gray waters of the Atlantic,
the Ingleton children had lived with their
grandfather, Mr. Leslie Ingleton, at Cheverley
Chase. There were six of them, Everard, Lilias,
Dulcie, Roland, Bevis, and Clifford, and as time
passed on, and the memory of that tragedy in mid-ocean
grew faint, the Chase seemed as entirely
their home as if they had been born there. In
Everard's opinion, at any rate, it belonged to
them, as it had always belonged to the prospective[9]
heirs of the Ingleton family. And that
family could trace back through many centuries to
days of civil wars and service for king and country,
to crusades and deeds of chivalry, and even
to far-away ancestors who gave counsel at Saxon
Witenagemots. Norman keep had succeeded
wooden manor, and that in its turn had given
place to a Tudor dwelling, and both had finally
merged into a long Georgian mansion, with
straight rows of windows and a classic porch, not
so picturesque as the older buildings, but very
convenient and comfortable from a modern point
of view. The lovely gardens, with their clipped
yew hedges, were one of the sights of the neighborhood,
and it was a family satisfaction that the
view from the terrace over park, wood, and
stream showed not a single acre of land that was
not their own.

Mr. Leslie Ingleton, a fine type of the old-fashioned,
kindly, but autocratic English squire,
belonged to a bygone generation, and found it
difficult to move with the march of the times.
Because he had spent his seventy-four years of
life on the soil of Cheverley, the people tolerated
in "the ould squire" many things that they would
not have passed over in a younger man or a
stranger. They shrugged their shoulders and
gave way to his well-meant tyranny, for man and
boy, everybody on the estate had experienced his[10]
kindness and realized his good intentions towards
his tenants.

"If he does fly off at a tangent, ten to one Miss
Clare'll be down the next day and set all straight
again," was the general verdict on his frequent
outbursts.

Cheverley Chase would have been quite incomplete
without Cousin Clare. She was a second
cousin of the Ingletons, who had come to tend
Grandmother in her last illness, and after her
death had remained to take charge of the household
and the newly-arrived family of grandchildren.
She was one of those calm, quiet, big-souled
women who in the early centuries would
have been a saint, and in mediæval times the abbess
of a nunnery, but happening to be born in
the nineteenth century, her mental outlook had
a modern bias, and both her philanthropy and her
religious instincts had developed along the latest
lines of thought. She had schemes of her own
for work in the world, but at present she was doing
the task that was nearest in helping to bring
up the motherless children who had been placed
temporarily in her care. To manage this rather
turbulent crew, soothe the irascible old Squire,
and keep the general household in unity was a
task that required unusual powers of tact, and a
capacity for administration and organization that
was worthy of a wider sphere. She might be[11]
described as the axle of the family wheel, for she
was the unobtrusive center around which everything
unconsciously revolved.

But by this time Lilias and Dulcie will have
ridden up hill and down dale, and will be turning
Rajah and Peri in at the great wrought-iron gates
of Cheverley Chase, and trotting through the
park, and up the laurel-bordered carriage drive to
the house. There was quite a big welcome for
them when they arrived. Everard had returned
the day before from Harrow, Roland was back
from his preparatory school, and the two little
ones, Bevis and Clifford, had just said good-by
for three weeks to their nursery governess, and
in consequence were in the wildest of holiday
spirits. There was a general family pilgrimage
round the premises to look at all the most cherished
treasures, the horses, the pigeons, the pet
rabbits, the new puppies, the garden, and the
woods beyond the park; there were talks with the
grooms and the keepers, and plans for cutting
evergreens and decorating both the house and
the village church in orthodox Christmas fashion.

"It's lovely to be at home again," sighed Lilias
with satisfaction, as the three elder ones sauntered
back through the winding paths of the terraced
vegetable garden.

"And such a home, too!" exulted Dulcie.

"Rather!" agreed Everard. "That was exactly[12]
what was in my mind. The first thing I
thought when I looked out of the window this
morning was: 'What a ripping place it is, and
some day it will be all mine.'"

"Yours, Everard?"

"Why, of course. Who's else should it be?
The Chase has always gone strictly in the male
line, and I'm the oldest grandson, so naturally
I'm the heir. It goes without saying!"

Dulcie's pink face was looking puzzled.

"Do you mean to say if Grandfather were to
die, that everything would be yours?" she asked.
"Would you be the Squire?"

"I believe I'm called 'the young squire' already,"
replied Everard airily.

"But what about the rest of us?" objected
Dulcie.

"Oh, I'd look after you, of course! The heir
always does something for the younger ones.
You needn't be afraid on that score!"

Everard's tone was magnanimous and patronizing
in the extreme. He was gazing at the house
with an air of evident proprietorship. Dulcie,
who had never considered the question before,
revolved it carefully in her youthful brain for a
moment or two; then she ventured a comment.

"Wouldn't it be fairer to divide it?"

"Nonsense, Dulcie!" put in Lilias. "You
don't understand. Properties like this are never[13]
divided. They always go, just as they are, to
the eldest son. You couldn't chop them up into
pieces, or there'd be no estate left."

"Couldn't one have the house and the other
the wood, and another the park?"

"Much good the house would do anybody
without the estate to keep it up!" grunted Everard.
"Dulcie, you're an utter baby. I don't
believe you ever see farther than the end of your
silly little nose. You may be glad you've got a
brother to take care of you."

"But haven't I as much right here as you?"
persisted Dulcie obstinately.

"No, you haven't; the heir always has the best
right to everything. Cheer up! When the
place is mine, I mean to have a ripping time here!
I'll make things hum, I can tell you—ask my
friends down, and you girls shall help to entertain.
I've planned it all out. I suppose I shall
have to go to Cambridge first, but I'll enjoy myself
there too—you bet! On the whole I think
I was born under a lucky star! Hallo! there goes
Astley; I want to speak to him."

Everard whistled to the groom, and ran down
the garden, leaving his sisters to return to the
house. At seventeen he was a fair, handsome,
dashing sort of boy, of a type more common
thirty years ago than at present. He held closely
to the old-fashioned ideas of privileges of birth,[14]
and, according to modern notions, had contracted
some false ideals of life. He had lounged
through school without attempting to work, and
was depending for all his future upon what should
be left him by the industry of others. All the
same, in spite of his attitude of "top dog" in the
family, he was attractive, and inclined to be generous.
Like most boys of seventeen, he had
reached the "swollen head" stage, and imagined
himself of vastly greater importance than he really
was. The sobriquet of "the young squire"
pleased his fancy, and he meant to live up to what
he considered were the traditions of so distinguished
a title.

chapter ii

A Stolen Joy-ride

Christmas passed over at Cheverley Chase in[15]
good old-fashioned orthodox mode. The young
Ingletons, with plenty of evergreens to work
upon, performed prodigies in the way of decorations
at church and home. They distributed
presents at a Christmas-tree for the children of
tenants, and turned up in a body to occupy the
front seats at the annual New Year's concert in
the village. When the usual festivities were finished,
however, time hung a little heavy on their
hands, and one particular morning found them
lounging about the breakfast-room in the especially
aggravating situation of not quite knowing
what to do with themselves.

"It's too bad we can't have the horses to-day!"
groused Dulcie. "I'd set my heart on a
ride, and I can't get on with my fancy work till I
can go to Balderton for some more silks."

"And I want some wool," proclaimed Lilias,
stopping from a rather unnecessary onslaught of
poking at the fire. "There's never anything fit[16]
to buy at this wretched little shop in the village!"

"Except bacon and kippers!" grinned Roland.

"I can't knit with kippers!"

"Fact is, we're all bored stiff!" drawled
Everard from the sofa, flinging away the book he
was reading, and stretching his arms in the luxury
of a long-drawn yawn. "What should you say
to a turn in the car? Wouldn't it be rather
sport, don't you think?"

"If Grandfather would spare Milner to take
us!" said Lilias doubtfully.

"We don't want Milner. I'll drive you! I
can manage a car as well as he can, any day.
Don't get excited, you kids! No, Bevis, I shall
certainly not allow you to try to drive! There's
only going to be one man at that job, and that's
myself!"

"Shall we go and ask Grandfather?" suggested
Dulcie.

"Right you are! No, not the whole of us,"
(as there was a general family move). "Three's
enough!"

So a deputation, consisting of Everard, Lilias,
and Dulcie, promptly presented themselves at the
study door and tapped for admission. As there
was no reply to a second rap, they opened the
door and walked into the room. Grandfather
was rather deaf, and sometimes, when he had
ignored a summons, he would say: "Well, why[17]
didn't you come in?" He was generally to be
found writing letters at this hour in the morning,
but to-day the revolving chair was empty. He
had apparently begun his usual correspondence,
for his desk was littered with papers. Leaning
up against the ink-pot there was a photograph.
The young people, who had walked across the
room towards the window, could not fail to notice
it, for it was tilted in such a prominent place
that it at once attracted their attention. It represented
a very pretty dark-eyed young lady, holding
a baby on her lap, with a slight background
of Greek columns. The decidedly foreign look
about it was justified by the photographer's name
in the corner: "Carlo Salviati, Palermo."
Over the top was written in ink, in a man's handwriting:
"My wife and Leslie, from Tristram."

"Who is it?" asked Everard, gazing at the
portrait with curiosity. "She's rather decent
looking. Never seen her here, though, that I can
remember!"

"It's a ducky little baby! But who is Tristram?"
said Dulcie.

"We had an Uncle Tristram once," answered
Lilias doubtfully.

"Why, but he died years and years ago, when
we were all kids!" returned Everard.

"I know. He was the only Tristram in the[18]
family, though. I can't imagine who these two
can be. Leslie, too! Why, that's Grandfather's
name! Was the baby christened after him?"

"We'll ask Cousin Clare sometime," said Dulcie,
so interested that she could scarcely tear
herself away. "I really want to know most fearfully
who they are."

"Oh, don't bother about photos at present!
Let's find Grandfather!" urged Everard.
"Perhaps he's gone down to the stables, or he
may be in the gun-room."

On further inquiry, however, they ascertained
that a telegram had arrived for Mr. Ingleton, on
the receipt of which he had consulted Miss Clare,
had ordered the smaller car, and they had both
been driven away by Milner, the chauffeur, and
were not expected back until seven or eight o'clock
in the evening. This was news indeed. For a
whole day the heads of the establishment would
be absent, and the younger generation had the
place to themselves. For the next eight hours
they could do practically as they pleased.

Everard stood for a moment thinking. He
did not reveal quite all that passed through his
mind, but the first instalment was sufficient for the
family.

"We'll get out the touring car, take some lunch
with us, and have a joy-ride."

Five delighted faces smiled their appreciation.

[19]"Oh, Everard! Dare we?" Dulcie's objection
was consciously faint.

"Why not? When Grandfather's away, I
consider I've a right to take his place and use the
car if I want. I'm master here in his absence!
I'll make it all right with him; don't you girls
alarm yourselves! Tear off and put on your
coats, and tell Atkins to pack us a basket of lunch,
and to put some coffee in the thermos flasks."

With Everard willing to assume the full responsibility
the girls could not resist such a tempting
offer, while the younger boys were, of course,
only too ready to follow where their elders led.
Elton, the groom, made some slight demur when
Everard went down to the motor-house and began
to get out the big touring-car, but the boy
behaved with such assurance that he concluded
he must be acting with his grandfather's permission.
Moreover, Elton was in charge of the
horses, and not the cars, and Milner, the chauffeur,
who might reasonably have raised objections,
was away driving his master.

The cook, who perhaps considered it was no
business of hers to offer remonstrances, and that
the house would be quieter without the young
folks, hastily packed a picnic hamper and filled
the thermos flasks. A rejoicing crew carried
them outside and stowed them in the car.

It seemed a delightful adventure to go off in[20]
this way entirely on their own. There was some
slight wrangling over seats, but Everard settled
it in his lofty fashion.

"You'll sit where I tell you. I'll have Lilias
in front, and the rest of you may pack in behind.
If you don't like it, you can stop at home. No,
I'm not going to have you kids interfering here,
so you needn't think it."

Everard had been taught by the chauffeur to
drive, and could manage a car quite tolerably
well. He possessed any amount of confidence,
which is a good or bad quality according to circumstances.
He ran the large touring "Daimler"
successfully through the park, and turned
her out at the great iron gateway on to the highroad.
Everybody was in the keenest spirits. It
was a lovely day, wonderfully mild for January,
and the sunshine was so pleasant that they hardly
needed the thick fur rugs. There seemed a hint
of spring in the air; already hazel catkins hung
here and there in the hedgerows, thrushes and
robins were singing cheerily, and wayside cottages
were covered with the blossom of the yellow jessamine.
It was a joy to spin along the good
smooth highroad in the luxurious car. Everard
was a quick driver, and kept a pace which sometimes
exceeded the speed limit. Fortunately his
brothers and sisters were not nervous, or they
might have held their breath as he dashed round[21]
corners without sounding his horn, pelted down
hills, and on several occasions narrowly avoided
colliding with farm carts. A reckless boy of
seventeen, without much previous experience,
does not make the most careful of motorists. As
a matter of fact it was the first time Master
Everard had driven without the chauffeur at his
elbow, and, though he got on very well, his performance
was not unattended with risks.

Towards one o'clock the crew at the back began
to clamor for lunch, and to suggest a halt
when some suitable spot should be reached. The
difficulty was to find a place, for they were driving
so fast that by the time the younger boys had
called out the possibilities of some wood or small
quarry, the car had flown past, and, sooner than
turn back, Everard would say: "Oh, we'll stop
somewhere else!"

By unanimous urging, however, he was at last
persuaded to halt at a picturesque little bridge in
a sheltered hollow, where they had the benefit of
the sunshine and escaped the wind. A small
brook wandered below between green banks
where autumn brambles still showed brown leaves,
and actually a shriveled blackberry or two remained.
There was a patch of grass by the roadside,
and here Everard put the car, to be out of
reach of passing traffic, while its occupants spread
the rugs on the low wall of the bridge, and began[22]
to unpack their picnic baskets. Cook had certainly
done her best for them: there were ham
sandwiches and pieces of cold pie, and jam turnovers,
and slices of cake, and some apples and
oranges, and plenty of hot coffee in the thermos
flasks.

"It's ever so much nicer to have one's meals
out-of-doors, even in January!" declared Bevis,
munching a damson tartlet, and dropping stones
into the brook below. "I believe it's warm
enough to wade. That water doesn't look cold,
somehow!"

"No, you don't!" said Lilias briskly. "You
needn't think, just because Miss Mason isn't here,
you can do all the mad things you like. It's no
use beginning to unlace your boots, for I shan't
let you wade, or Clifford either! The idea! In
January!"

"Why not?" sulked Bevis. "I didn't ask
you, Lilias. Everard won't say no!"

"You can please yourselves," answered his
eldest brother, "but I'm going to take the car on
now. If you stay and wade, you'll have to walk
home, that's all! I certainly shan't came back
for you."

At so awful a threat the youngsters, who had
really meant business where the water was concerned,
hurriedly relaced their boots, and ran to
take their places in the car; the girls finished packing[23]
the remains of the picnic in the basket, and
followed, and soon the engine was started again,
and they were once more flying along the road.

Everard had brought out the family for a joy-ride
without any very particular idea of where
they were going, though he was steering generally
in the direction of the Cleland Hills. To his
mind the chief fun of the expedition lay in simply
taking any road that looked interesting, without
regard to sign-posts. The others trusted implicitly
to his powers of path-finding, and had really
not the slightest idea in what part of the country
they were traveling. After quite a long time,
however, it occurred to Lilias to ask where they
were, and how long it would take them to get
home again.

"We've come such a roundabout route, I
scarcely know," replied Everard. "Those are
the Cleland Hills in front of us, though, and if
we bowl straight ahead, and go over them, we
shall get to Clacton Bridge; then we can get the
straight highroad back to Cheverley."

"We shan't be home before it's dark,
though?"

"Well, no! But the head lights are working
all right—I tried them before we started."

"It will be fun to drive in the dark!" chuckled
the boys behind.

"I hope we shall be back before Grandfather[24]
and Cousin Clare, though," said Dulcie a little
uneasily.

The road over the Cleland Hills was much
wilder than they expected, and it was very stony
and bad. Up and up they went till walls, hedges
and farms had disappeared, and only the lonely
moor lay on either side of the rough track. It
was a place where no motorist in his senses would
have ventured to take a car, the extreme roughness
of the road made steering difficult, and the
strain on the tires was enormous. Instead of
driving cautiously, Everard plunged along with
all the hardihood of youth, bumping anyhow over
ruts and stones. They were just beyond the
brow of the hill when a loud bang, followed by a
grinding sensation, announced the bad news that
one of their tires had burst.

"What beastly bad luck!" lamented Everard,
getting out to inspect the injured cover. "It
might have had the decency to keep up till we had
reached civilization! Well, there's nothing for
it but to put on the spare tire. I've helped Milner
to do it before, so I can manage. It's a
bother we left the spare wheel at home. I shall
want some of you to help me, though."

Everard had indeed rendered some assistance
to the chauffeur on various occasions, but it was
quite another matter to perform the troublesome
operation of changing the tire with only two girls[25]
and three young brothers to lend a hand. In
their inexperienced enthusiasm, they did all the
wrong things, very nearly nipped the tube, mislaid
the tools, and pulled where they should have
pushed. It was only after nearly an hour's work
that Everard at last managed to get the business
finished. The family, warm and excited, packed
once more into the car.

"Well, I hope we shall have no more troubles
now!" exclaimed Lilias, who was growing tired
and longing for home and tea. "What's the
matter, Everard?"

"Matter! Why, she won't start, that's all!"

Here was a predicament! Whether the bumping
up the rough road had thrown some delicate
piece of mechanism out of gear, or the waiting in
the cold had cooled the engine, it was impossible
to say, but nothing that Everard could do would
induce the car to start. He examined everything
which his rather limited knowledge of motorology
suggested might be the cause of the stoppage, but
with no result. After half an hour's tinkering,
he was obliged ruefully to acknowledge himself
utterly baffled.

They were indeed in an extremely awkward
situation, stranded on a wild moor, probably sixty
miles from home, and with the short winter's day
closing rapidly in.

[26]"What are we to do?" gasped Lilias, half-crying.

"We can't stay here all night!"

"Finish our prog and sleep in the car," suggested
Roland.

"No, no! We should be frozen before morning."

"I think we'd better walk on while it's light
enough to see," said Everard. "We shall probably
strike a highroad soon, and we'll stop some
motorist, ask for a lift to the nearest town, and
stay all night at a hotel."

"But what about the car?"

"We must just leave her to her fate. There's
nothing else for it. I don't suppose anybody
will touch her up here. It can't be helped, any
way."

"Let's finish our prog before we set off!" persisted
Roland, opening the picnic basket.

The family was hungry again, so they readily
set to work to dispose of the remains of their
lunch. It might be a long time before they were
within reach of their next meal, and they blessed
Cook for having packed a plentiful supply.
Everard would not let them linger for more than
a few minutes.

"Hurry up, you kids!" he urged. "We
don't know how far we may have to go, and it
[27]will be getting dark soon. Thank goodness we
shall be walking down hill, at any rate."

"what are we to do!" gasped lilias

After whisking along in the car, "Shanks's
pony" seemed a very slow mode of progress;
their breakdown had happened in an out-of-the-way
spot, and it was more than an hour before
they reached a highroad. It was almost dark by
that time, and matters seemed so desperate that
Everard determined to hail the very first passing
motorist who seemed to be able to help them.
Fate brought along no handsome tourist car, but
a rattling motor-lorry, the driver of which stopped
in answer to their united shouts, and, after hearing
of the difficulty they were in, consented to give
them a lift to the town, five miles away, for which
he was bound. Fortunately the lorry was empty,
so the family thankfully climbed in, and squatted
on the floor, while Everard sat in front with the
driver.

It was not a very aristocratic mode of conveyance
for the heir of Cheverley Chase, but Everard
was in no mood to pick and choose just then, and
would have accepted a seat in a coal truck if necessary.
As for the younger ones, they enjoyed
the fun of it. It was a very bumpy performance
to sit on the floor of the jolting wagon, but at any
rate infinitely preferable to walking.

Arrived in Bilstone, their cicerone drove them
to a Commercial Hotel with whose landlady he[28]
had some acquaintance, and that good dame, after
eyeing the party curiously, consented to make up
beds for them for the night.

"I've no private sitting-room to put you in,
and I can't show these young ladies into the commercial
room," she objected; "but I'll have a fire
lighted in one of the bedrooms, and you can all
have some tea up there. Will that suit you?"

Lilias and Dulcie, catching a glimpse through
an open door of the company smoking in the commercial
room, agreed thankfully, glad to find
some safe haven to which they could beat a retreat.

"I wonder what Cousin Clare would say?"
they asked each other.

It was indeed an urgent matter to send some
news of their whereabouts to Cheverley Chase,
where their absence must be causing much alarm.
While the landlady, therefore, ordered the tea,
Everard went out to the public telephone, asked
for a trunk call, and rang up No. 169 Balderton.
He could hear relief in the voice of old Winder,
who answered the telephone. Everard was not
anxious to enter into too many explanations, so
he simply said that they had had a breakdown,
told the name of the town and the hotel where
they were staying, and suggested that Milner
should come over next morning to the rescue. On
hearing his Grandfather's voice, he promptly rang[29]
off. To-morrow would be quite time enough, so
he felt, for giving the history of their adventure.
The unpleasant interview might just as well be
deferred, and he had no wish to listen to explosions
of anger over the telephone.

Tea, tinned salmon, plum and apple jam, and
very indifferent bedrooms were the best that the
Commercial Hotel had to offer, but it was infinitely
better than being benighted on the moor.
In spite of lack of all toilet necessaries, the Ingletons
slept peacefully, worn out with their long day
in the fresh air. Milner, the chauffeur, must have
made an early start, for he arrived at eleven
o'clock next morning in the small car, armed with
his master's instructions. He paid the hotel bill,
chartered a taxi, in which he dispatched Lilias,
Dulcie, Roland, Bevis and Clifford, straight for
home, then, engaging a mechanic from a garage,
and taking Everard as guide, he started up the
hill in the pouring rain to find the abandoned car.
It needed several hours' attention before it could
be induced to start, and it was not until evening
that he was able to place it safely back in the
motor-house at Cheverley Chase.

Everard had expected his peppery grandfather
to be angry, but he was quite unprepared for the
intensity of the storm which burst over his head
on his return.

"Your insolence goes beyond all bounds!"[30]
thundered Mr. Ingleton. "To borrow my car
without leave! And to take your sisters without
a chaperon to a fifth-rate public-house! You deserve
horsewhipping for it! You think yourself
the young Squire, do you? And imagine you can
do just what you like here? While I'm above
ground I'll have you to know I'm master, and nobody
else in this place!"

"I can't see it was anything so out of the way
to take the kids a run in the car, and I never
meant to keep the girls out all night," replied
Everard defiantly. He had a temper as well as
his grandfather, and the pair had often been at
loggerheads before.

"Indeed! There are ways of making people
see! You can just go a little too far sometimes!"
declared the old gentleman sarcastically. "I've
given orders that you don't take either car out
again unless Milner is with you. So you understand?"

"I suppose I do," grunted Everard, turning
sulkily away.

It was only a few days after this that Everard,
Lilias, and Dulcie, returning home across the park
from a walk in the woods, met Mr. Bowden, the
family solicitor, who was riding down the drive
from the Chase. He stopped his motor-bicycle
and got off to speak to them. They knew him
well, for he often came to the house to conduct[31]
their grandfather's business, and he was indeed
quite a favorite with them all. He looked at
Everard keenly when the first greetings were over.

"Been getting yourself into considerable hot
water just lately, haven't you?" he remarked.

Everard colored and frowned, then burst forth.

"Grandfather's quite too ridiculous! Why
shouldn't I take out the car if I want to? I can
drive as well as Milner! He behaved as if I
were a kid! It's more than a fellow can stand
sometimes! He likes to keep everything tight
in his own hands; at his age it's time he began to
stand aside a little and let me look after things!
I shall have to take charge of the whole property
some day, I suppose!"

Mr. Bowden was gazing at Everard with the
noncommittal air often assumed by lawyers.

"I wouldn't make too sure about that," he said
slowly. "I suppose you know your Uncle Tristram
left a child? No! Well, he did, at any
rate. I must hurry on now. I've an appointment
to keep at my office. A happy New Year
to you all. Good-by!"

And, starting his engine, he was off before they
had time to reply.

"What does he mean?" asked Lilias, watching
the retreating bicycle. "Uncle Tristram has been
dead for thirteen years! We never seem to have
heard anything about him!"

[32]"What was that photo we saw on the study
table?" queried Dulcie. "Don't you remember—the
lady and the baby, and it had written on it:
'My wife and Leslie, from Tristram.'"

"I suppose it was Uncle Tristram's wife and
child," replied Everard thoughtfully. "He
must have called the kid 'Leslie' after Grandfather.
They ought to have christened me
'Leslie.' I can't think why they didn't."

"Have we a cousin Leslie, then, whom we
don't know?"

"I suppose we must have, somewhere!"

"How fearfully thrilling!"

"Um! I don't know that it's thrilling at all.
It's the first I've heard of it until to-day. I wish
our father had been the eldest son, instead of
Uncle Tristram!"

"Why? What does it matter?"

"It may matter more than you think. You're
a silly little goose, Dulcie, and, as I often tell you,
you never see farther than the end of your own
nose. Surely, after all these years, though,
Grandfather must——"

"Must what?" asked Lilias curiously.

"Never you mind! Girls can't know everything!"
snapped Everard, walking on in front of
his sisters with a look of unwonted worry upon
his usually careless and handsome young face.

chapter iii

A Valentine Party

Chilcombe Hall, where Lilias and Dulcie had[33]
been boarders for the last two years, was an exceedingly
nice school. It stood on a hill-side well
raised above the river, and behind it there was
a little wood where bulbs had been naturalized,
and where, in their season, you might find clumps
of pure white snowdrops, sheets of glorious daffodils,
and later on lovely masses of the lily of the
valley. In the garden all kinds of sweet things
seemed to be blooming the whole year round.
Golden aconite buds opened with the January
term, and in a wild patch above the rockery the
delicious heliotrope-scented Petasites fragrans
blossomed to tempt the bees which an hour's sunshine
would bring forth from the hives, scarlet
Pyrus japanica was trained along the wall under
the front windows, and early flowering cherry and
almond blossoms made delicate pink patches of
color long before leaves were showing on the
trees.

Beautiful surroundings in a school can be quite[34]
as important a part of our education as the textbooks
through which we toil. We are made up
of body, mind, and spirit, and the developing soul
needs satisfying as much as the physical or mental
part of us. Long years afterwards, though we
utterly forget the lessons we may have learnt as
children, we can still vividly recall the effect of
the afternoon sun streaming through the fuchsia
bush outside the open French window where we
sat conning those unremembered tasks. The
lovely things of nature, assimilated half unconsciously
when we are young, equip us with a
purity of heart and a refinement of taste that
should safeguard us later, and keep our thoughts
at a lofty level.

The "beauty cult" was a decided feature of
Chilcombe Hall. Miss Walters was extremely
artistic; she painted well in water-colors and had
exquisite taste. Many of the charming decorations
in the house had been done by herself; she
had designed and stencilled the frieze of drooping
clusters of wistaria that decorated the dining-hall
wall; the framed landscapes in the drawing-room
were her own work, and she herself always
superintended the arrangement of the bowls of
flowers that gave such brightness to the schoolrooms.

Her twenty pupils had on the whole a decidedly
pleasant time. There were just enough of them[35]
to develop the community spirit, but not too many
to obliterate the individual, or, as Ida Spenser
put it: "You can get up a play, or a dance, or
any other sort of fun, and yet we all know each
other like a kind of big family."

"Divided up into small families according to
bedrooms!" added Hester Wilson.

The bedrooms at Chilcombe Hall were rather
a speciality. They were large, and were furnished
partly as studies, and girls had their own
bookcases, knick-knacks, and pretty things there.
As the house was provided with central heating,
they were warmed, and a certain amount of preparation
was done in them each afternoon. Miss
Walters' artistic faculty had decorated them in
schemes of various colors, so that they were
known respectively as The Rose, The Gold, The
Green, The Brown, and The Blue Bedrooms.
Lilias and Dulcie Ingleton, Gowan Barbour, and
Bertha Chesters, who occupied the last-named,
considered it quite the choicest of all. They had
each made important contributions to its furniture,
had clubbed together to buy a Liberty table-cloth,
had provided vases in lovely shades of turquoise
blue, and had worked toilet-mats, nightdress
cases and other accessories to accord with
the prevailing tone. "The Blue Grotto," as they
named their dormitory, certainly had points over
rival bedrooms, for it looked down the garden[36]
towards the river, and had the best view of the
sunset. Moreover, it was at the very end of the
corridor, so that sudden outbursts of laughter did
not meet the ears of Miss Hardy quite so easily
as from the Rose or the Brown room.

The work of the spring term had been in full
swing for nearly a month, when Gowan Barbour,
looking at the calendar—hand-painted, with blue
cranesbill geraniums—suddenly discovered that
next morning would be the festival of St. Valentine.

"Could anything be better?" she exulted.
"We've won the record for tidiness three weeks
running, so we're entitled to a special indulgence.
I vote we ask to bring tea up here, and have a
Valentine party. Don't you think it would be
rather scrumptious? I've all sorts of ideas in
my head."

"Topping!" agreed Dulcie, pausing in the act
of tying her hair ribbon to consider the important
question, "specially if we could get Miss Walters
to let us send to Glazebrook for a few cakes. I
believe she would, if we wheedled!"

"What about visitors?" asked Lilias. "It
would be much more of a party if we had a few
of the others in."

"We don't want a crowd, or we might as well
be in the dining-hall," objected Bertha.

"Well, of course we shouldn't ask the whole[37]
school, naturally, but perhaps just Noreen and
Phillida!"

"We must get at the soft spot in Miss Walters'
heart," decided Gowan. "Pick a bunch of early
violets if you can find them, lay them on her study
table, talk about flowers and nature for a little
while, then ask if we may have a quiet little party
in our bedroom to-morrow afternoon, with cakes
at our own expense."

"Quiet?" queried Lilias.

"Well, of course you couldn't call it rowdy,
could you? We'll send you to do the asking.
Those dimples of yours generally get what you
want, and on the whole I think you're the pattern
one of us, and the most likely to be listened to."

Tea at Chilcombe Hall was a quite informal
meal. It partook, indeed more of the nature of
a canteen. The urns were what the girls called
"on tap" from four to four-thirty, and during
summer any one might take cup, saucer, and plate
into the garden, provided she duly brought them
back afterwards to the dining-hall. Special permission
for a bedroom feast was therefore not
very difficult to obtain, and Lilias returned from
her interview in the study with her dimples conspicuously
in evidence.

"Well?" asked the interested circle in the
Blue bedroom.

"Sweet as honey!" reported Lilias. "She[38]
said 'Certainly, my dear!' We may each ask
one friend, and we may spend two shillings
amongst us on cakes, if we give the money and
the list of what we want to Jones this afternoon,
because he's going into Glazebrook first thing to-morrow
morning."

"Only two shillings!" commented Gowan.

"It will go no way!" pouted Bertha.

"Well, I can't help it. Miss Walters said
'Two shillings' most emphatically."

"You might have stuck out for more! Those
iced cakes are always half a crown!"

"I didn't dare to stick out for anything. I
was so afraid she'd change her mind, and say
'There's good plain home-made cake with your
schoolroom tea, and you must be content with
that,' like she did to Nona and Muriel."

"We could get twelve twopenny cakes for
two shillings," calculated Dulcie; "but if there
are eight of us, that's only one and a half
apiece."

"Best get eight twopenny iced cakes, and eight
penny buns," suggested Bertha, taking pencil and
paper to write the important order.

"Right-o! Only be sure you put pink iced
cakes, they are so much the nicest."

"Whom shall we ask? It won't be much of a
beano on two shillings. Still, they'll be keen on
coming, I expect."

[39]Noreen, Phillida, Prissie, and Edith, the four
finally selected favorites, accepted the invitation
with alacrity. Bedroom tea-parties were indulgences
only given to winners of three weeks'
dormitory records, so the less fortunate occupants
of the Brown and Rose rooms were really profiting
by the tidiness of their hostesses. The Blue
Grotto was placed in apple-pie order on the afternoon
of the fourteenth of February. A white
hemstitched cloth and a bowl of snowdrops
adorned the center table, and the cakes were set out
on paper doilies. Both hostesses and guests were
in the dining-hall by four o'clock, awaiting the
appearance of the urns, and each bore her cup of
tea and a portion of bread and butter and scones
upstairs with her.

It was a jolly party round the square table, and
if the cakes were not too plentiful, they were at
least voted delicious. The girls carried down the
cups when they had finished, shook the table-cloth
out of the window, carefully collected crumbs
from the floor, so as to preserve their record for
neatness, then gathered round the table again for
an hour's fun before the bell should ring for
prep.

"It's a Valentine party, and I've got a ripping
idea," said Gowan. "We'll put our names on
pieces of paper, fold them up, shuffle them and
draw them; then each of us must write a valentine[40]
to the one we've drawn. We'll shuffle these,
and one of us must read them all out. Then we
must each guess who's written our valentines."

"Sounds rather brainy, doesn't it?" objected
Noreen. "I don't think I'm any hand at
poetry!"

"Oh! you can make up something if you try.
Valentines are generally doggerel."

"Need it be quite original?" asked Edith.

"Well, if you really can't compose anything,
we'll allow quotations."

"Cracker mottoes?" suggested Dulcie.

"Exactly. They're just about in the right
style."

"Are you all getting into a sentimental vein?"
giggled Bertha. "Remember 'Love' rhymes
with 'Dove,' and Cupid with—with—"

"Stupid," supplied Dulcie laconically.

"I'm not going to give my rhymes away beforehand,"
said Phillida. "Is that shuffling
business finished, Gowan? Then bags me first
draw."

Each girl, having been apportioned the name of
her valentine, set to work to compose a suitable
ode in her honor. There was much knitting of
brows and nibbling of pencils, and demands for a
few minutes longer, when Gowan called "Time!"
At last, however, the effusions were all finished,
folded, shuffled, and laid in a pile. Gowan, as[41]
the originator of the game, was unanimously
elected president. She drew one at a venture,
opened it, and read:

"TO PHILLIDA



"Fair maiden, who in ancient song

Was wont to flout her swain,

I prithee be not always coy,

But turn your face again.

My heart is true, and it will rue,

That ever you should doubt me,

So sweet, be kind, and change your mind,

And don't for ever flout me."

"Who wrote that?" asked Phillida, glancing
keenly round the circle. "Noreen, I believe
you're looking conscious! I always suspect people
who say they can't write."

"I! No, indeed!" declared Noreen.

"You may make guesses, but nobody's to confess
or deny authorship till the end," put in
Gowan hastily. "Remember, valentines are always
supposed to be anonymous. Now I'm going
to read another.

"TO LILIAS



"Cupid with his fatal dart

Shot me through and made me smart,

So I pray, before we part,

Kiss me once, and heal my heart!"

[42]"Short and sweet!" commented Edith.

"Very sweet—quite sugary, in fact," agreed
Lilias. "It's the sort of motto you get out of
a superior cracker with gelatine paper on the outside,
and trinkets inside. There ought to be a
ring with all that. I believe it's Prissie's, but
I'm not sure it isn't by Bertha."

"You mayn't have two guesses!" reminded
Gowan, reaching for another paper. "Hallo!
this actually to me! I feel quite shy!"

"Go on! You're not usually afflicted with
shyness," urged the others.

"TO GOWAN



"Wee modest, crimson-tipped flower,

Thou'st met me in an evil hour;

For I maun gang far frae thy bower,

And leave thee greeting 'mang the stour.

But lassie, thou art no thy lane,

This heart is also brak in twain,

And like to burst with grief and pain

To think I'll see thee ne'er again."

"H'm! He might have signed 'Robbie
Burns' at the end of it!" commented Gowan.
"Seems to take it for granted I'm doing half of
the grieving. No, thanks! I prefer to 'flout
them' like Phillida. He may go away with his
old broken heart if he likes. That's not my idea
of a valentine."

[43]"There were bad valentines as well as good
ones, weren't there?" twinkled Dulcie.

"Certainly; and if I set this down to you, perhaps
I'll not be far out. Who comes next? Oh! Bertha.

"TO BERTHA



"I have a little heart to let,

As nice as nice can be;

It's vacant just at present,

On a yearly tenancy.

It's quite completely furnished

With affection's choicest store,

Sweet nothings by the bushel,

And kisses by the score.

It sadly wants a tenant,

This little heart of mine,

So I beg that you will take it,

And be my Valentine!"

"Edith! Dulcie! Phillida!—Oh! I can't
guess!" laughed Bertha. "There's not the least
clue! Go on, Gowan! I'll plump for Phillida."

The next on the list was—

"TO NOREEN



"Cupid on his rosy wing

Flits to offer you a ring:

Take it, dear, and happy make

One who'd die for your sweet sake!"

[44]"That's the sugary type again, and suggests a
cracker!" decided Noreen. "You feel there
ought to be a big dish of trifle somewhere near."

"I wish there were!" chirped Edith. "You
haven't guessed yet!"

"Oh, well, I guess you!"

"I hope it's my turn next," said Prissie.

"No, it happens to be Dulcie," retorted
Gowan. "You'll probably be the last of all.

"TO DULCIE



"Oh, lady fair from Cheverley Chase,

The day when first I saw your face

Put me in such a fearful flutter

I could do naught but moan and mutter.

Whether I'm standing on my head,

Or if I'm on my heels instead,

I scarce can tell, for Cupid's arrows

Have made my brain like any sparrow's.

When you come near, my foolish heart

Goes pit-a-pat with throb and start,

And when I try my love to utter,

My fairest speech is but a stutter.

How to propose is all my task,

Whether to write or just to ask,

And ere I solve the problem knotty

I really fear I shall go dotty.

Oh, lady fair, in pity stop

And list while I the question pop.

'Tis here on paper; think it over,

And let me be your humble lover."

[45]"Quite the longest of them all!" smiled Dulcie
complacently.

"But not as poetical as mine!" contended
Noreen.

"Oh, go on!" said Edith. "I'm sure I'm
next!"

And so she was.

"TO EDITH



"Maiden of the swan-like neck,

I am at your call and beck;

If you will but wave a finger,

In your neighborhood I'll linger,

Praise your eyes, and cheeks of roses,

Bring you presents of sweet posies,

Sweetheart, if you will be mine,

Let me be your Valentine!"

"I haven't got a swan neck! It's no longer
than other people's, I'm sure!" protested Edith
indignantly, looking round the circle for the offender.
"Who wrote such stuff?"

"There, don't get excited, child!" soothed
Gowan. "'Edith of the Swan Neck' was a historical
character. Don't you remember? She
ought to have married King Harold, only she
didn't, somehow. It's meant as a compliment,
no doubt!"

"I believe you wrote it yourself!"

[46]"No, I didn't. At least I mustn't tell just yet.
I'm going to read the last one now.

"TO PRISSIE



"I am not sentimental, please,

I cannot write in rhyme,

I beg you'll all ecstatics leave

Until another time.



"But if I'm lacking in romance,

At least my heart is true,

And in its own prosaic way,

It only beats for you.



"'Mong damsels all I think you are

The nicest little Missie,

And beg to have for Valentine

That sweetest maid, Miss Prissie."

"Author! Author!" cried Prissie. "It's
Lilias, I do believe!"

"Guessing's been horribly wrong!" said
Gowan. "Only about one of you was right.
Shall I read the list?

"To Phillida by Dulcie.

To Lilias by Noreen.

To Gowan by myself.

To Bertha by Phillida.

To Noreen by Prissie.

To Dulcie by Bertha.

To Edith by Lilias.

To Prissie by Edith."

[47]"So you wrote your own, Gowan! What a
humbug you are! You quite put us off the
scent!"

"Well, I drew my own name, you see. I had
to write something! Bertha ought to have a
prize for guessing right, only we've nothing to
give her. Shall we play something else?"

"Prissie's brought a pack of cards, and she says
she'll tell our fortunes," proclaimed Edith.

"I learnt how in the holidays," confessed
Prissie. "A girl was staying with us who had a
book about it. We used to have ripping fun
every evening over it. Whose fortune shall I
tell first? Oh, don't all speak at once! Look
here, you'd better each cut, and the lowest shall
win."

Dulcie, who turned up an ace, was the lucky
one, and was therefore elected as the first to consult
the oracle. By Prissie's orders she shuffled
the cards, then handed them back to the sorceress,
who laid them out face upward in rows, and after
a few moments' meditation began her prophecies.

"You're fair, and therefore the Queen of Diamonds
is your representative card—all the
luck's behind you instead of facing you. I see a
disappointment and great changes. A dark
woman is coming into your life. She's connected
somehow with money, but there are hearts behind[48]
her. You'll take a journey by land, and
find trouble and perplexity."

"Haven't you anything nicer to tell me than
that?" pouted Dulcie. "Who's the dark
woman?"

"She seems to be a relation, by the way the
cards are placed."

"I haven't any dark relations. They're all as
fair as fair—the whole family."

"It's silly nonsense! I don't believe in it!"
declared Lilias emphatically.

"I dare say it is, but it's fun, all the same.
Do tell mine now, Prissie!" urged Noreen, gathering
up the cards and reshuffling them.

Before the fates could be further consulted,
however, the big bell clanged for preparation,
and the magician was obliged to pocket her cards,
hurry downstairs, get out her lesson books, and
write a piece of French translation, while the inquirers
into her mysteries also separated, some to
practise piano or violin, and some to study.

"A dark woman!" scoffed Dulcie, spilling the
ink in her scorn as she filled her fountain pen.
"Any gypsy would have told me a fortune like
that. I'll let you know when she comes along,
Prissie!"

"All serene! Bring her to school if you like!"
laughed Prissie. "You didn't let me finish, or I
might have gone on to something nicer. There[49]
were other things on the cards as well as those."

"What things?"

"Oh, I shan't tell you now, when you only
make fun of them! Sh! sh! Here's Miss Herbert!"

And Prissie, turning away from her comrade,
opened her French dictionary and plunged into the
difficulties of her page of translation from Racine.

chapter iv

Disinherited

Valentine's Day had brought early flowers, and[50]
the song of the thrush and glints of golden sunshine,
but the bright weather was too good to last,
and winter again stretched out an icy hand to
check the advance of spring. Green daffodil
buds peeped through a covering of snow, and the
yellow jessamine blossom fell sodden in the rain.
The playing-field was a quagmire, and the girls
had to depend upon walking for their daily exercise.
Their tramps were somewhat of an adventure,
for in places the swollen brooks were washing
over the tops of their bridges, and they would
be obliged to turn back, or go round by devious
ways. The river in the valley had overflowed
its banks and spread over the low-lying meadows
like a lake. Tops of gates and hedges appeared
above the flood, and sea-gulls, driven inland by
the gales, swam over the pastures. Flocks of
peewits, starlings, and red-wings collected on the
uplands, and an occasional heron might be seen
flitting majestically across the storm-flecked sky.

[51]As a rule the school sallied forth in waterproofs
and thick boots, regardless of drizzle or
slight snow, but on days of blizzard there was
Swedish drill or dancing in the big class-room, to
work off the superfluous energy accumulated during
hours of sitting still at lessons.

One afternoon, when driving sleet and showers
swept past the house, and an inclement sky hid
every hint of sunshine, the twenty girls, clad in
their gymnasium costumes, were hard at work doing
Indian club exercises. Dulcie, who stood in
the vicinity of the window, could watch the raindrops
splashing on the pane, and see the wet tree-tops
waving about in the wind, and runnels of
water coursing down the drive like little rivulets.
It was the sort of afternoon when nobody who
could help it would choose to be out, and a visitor
to the Hall seemed about the most unlikely event
on the face of the earth. Judge her surprise,
therefore, when she heard the hoot of a motor-horn,
and the next instant saw, coming up the
drive, the well-known Daimler touring car from
Cheverley Chase. In her excitement she almost
dropped her clubs. Had Cousin Clare come
over to see them? Or had Everard a holiday?
She longed to communicate the thrilling news to
Lilias, but the music was still going on, and her
arms must move in time to it. She waited in a
flutter of expectation, revolving all kinds of delightful[52]
possibilities that might occur. Cousin
Clare would surely send a cake and a box of chocolates,
even if she had not come herself. Five
minutes passed, then Davis, the parlor-maid,
opened the door, and whispered a brief message
to Miss Perkins. The mistress held up her hand
and stopped the exercises.

"Lilias and Dulcie are wanted at once in the
study," she said.

Amid the astonished looks of their companions,
the two girls put down their clubs and left the
room, Dulcie hastily telling her sister, as they
hurried down the passage, how she had seen the
car from the window. They tapped at the study
door, and entered full of pleasant anticipation.
Miss Walters was standing by the fire, with a
letter in her hand.

"Come in, girls," she said gravely. "I've
sent for you because I have something very sad
to tell you. Can you prepare your minds for a
great shock? Your Grandfather was taken ill
suddenly last night, and passed away this morning.
Your cousin has sent the car to fetch you both
home. Go at once and change your dresses, and
Miss Harvey will help you to pack a few clothes.
The chauffeur is having some tea, but you must
not keep him waiting very long. I can't tell you
how grieved I am. You must be brave girls and[53]
try to comfort every one else at home. It will be
a sad loss for you all."

Lilias and Dulcie went upstairs almost dazed
with the unexpected bad news. They could
hardly believe that their grandfather, whom they
had left apparently in the best of health and
spirits, could have gone away into that other
world where Father and Mother and a little sister
had already passed over before. They packed
in a sort of dream, drank the cups of tea which
Miss Walters, full of kind sympathy, pressed upon
them in the hall, greeted Milner, who was starting
his engine, and entered the waiting car. Owing
to the floods, they took a roundabout route,
but half an hour's drive through sleet and rain
brought them to Cheverley Chase. It was
strange to see the blinds all down as they drew
up at the house. As they ran indoors, Winder,
the old butler, came from his pantry into the hall.
They questioned him eagerly. He shook his
head as he replied:

"It's a sad business, Miss Lilias and Miss Dulcie.
He was just as usual yesterday, then about
nine o'clock Miss Clare rang the bell violently,
and when I came into the drawing-room, there
was Master lying on the floor in a kind of fit.
I telephoned to the doctor, and we got him to
bed, but he never recovered consciousness. He
went at eleven this morning, as you'll see by the[54]
clock there. I stopped all the clocks at once.
It's the right thing to do in a house when the
master dies. Miss Clare's in her room. I'll let
her know you've arrived."

"We'll go and find her, thank you," said Lilias,
walking quietly upstairs.

The Ingleton children were truly grieved at
the loss of the grandfather who, for so many
years, had stood to them in the place of a parent.
They went softly about the house and spoke in
hushed voices. Everything seemed strange and
unusual. A dressmaker came from London with
boxes of mourning for Cousin Clare and the girls;
beautiful wreaths and crosses of flowers kept arriving
and were carried upstairs. Mr. Bowden,
the lawyer, was constantly in and out, making
arrangements for the funeral; neighbors left
cards with "Kind sympathy" written across the
corner. Everard, who had arrived home shortly
after his sisters, seemed to have grown years
older. He walked with a new dignity, as of one
who is suddenly called to fill a high position.

"I'll be a good brother to you all," he said to
the younger ones. "You must always look upon
the Chase as your home, of course. I'll do
everything for you that Grandfather ever did, and
more!"

"Will the Chase be yours now, then, Everard?"
asked Bevis.

[55]"I suppose so. I'm the eldest son, you see,
and the property has always gone in the direct
line. It was entailed until fifty years ago. I
shan't make any changes. I've told the servants
so, and they all said they wished to stay on.
I wouldn't part with Winder or Milner for the
world! They're part of the establishment."

"I couldn't imagine the place without them,"
agreed Dulcie.

On the afternoon before the funeral, Mr. Bowden,
who had motored over to make some final
arrangements, concluded his business, drank a cup
of tea in the drawing-room, and was escorted by
Everard and Lilias through the hall.

"The passing of the Squire is a sad loss to the
neighborhood," he remarked. "He was a true
type of the good old school of country gentlemen,
and most of us feel 'we shall not look upon his
like again.'"

"No," replied Everard. "It will be very hard
to succeed him, I know, but I shall try to do my
best."

Mr. Bowden started, looked at him musingly
for a moment, knitted his brows, then apparently
came to a decision. Instead of taking his hat
and coat from Winder, he waved the two young
people into the study, followed them, and shut the
door.

"I want a word with you in private," he began.[56]
"I'm going to do a very unprofessional
thing, but, as I've known you for years, I feel
the case justifies me. I can't let you come into the
dining-room to-morrow, after the funeral, and
hear your grandfather's will read aloud, without
giving you some warning beforehand of its contents.
I hinted to you, Everard, at Christmas-time,
not to count too much upon expectations."

"Why, but surely I am the heir?" burst out
Everard with white lips.

"My poor boy, you are nothing of the sort.
Your grandfather has willed the property to the
child of his elder son, Tristram."

At that critical moment there was a rap at the
door, and Winder, the butler, entered, respectfully
apologetic, to summon Mr. Bowden to the
telephone. The lawyer answered the call, which
was apparently a very urgent one, for, without
another word to Everard and Lilias, he took hat
and coat, hurried from the house, mounted his
motor-cycle, and was gone. He left utter consternation
behind him. The two young people,
returning to the study, tried to face the disastrous
news. He had indeed told them no details,
but the main outline was quite sufficient. They
could scarcely accustom themselves to believe it
for a moment or two.

"To bring me up as the heir, and then disinherit
me!" gasped Everard.

[57]"Why, everybody called you 'the young
squire'!" exclaimed Lilias. "It's unthinkable!"

"Unthinkable or not, I'm afraid it's true," said
Everard bitterly. "Bowden wouldn't have told
me otherwise. I suppose he drew up the will, so
he knows what's in it. Nice position to be in,
isn't it? Turned out to make room for some
other chap!"

"Who is this child of Uncle Tristram's?
We've never heard of him."

"It'll be the kid who is in that photo, I suppose—Leslie.
He looked about a year old in
the portrait, and it's thirteen years since Uncle
Tristram died, so he's probably fourteen or so
now. To think of a kid of fourteen taking my
place here! It's monstrous!"

"Oh, Everard, what shall we do?"

"I don't know. I'm going out to think it over.
Don't say a word about it to anybody yet.
Promise me you won't!"

Everard seized his cap and waterproof, and
plunged out-of-doors into the rain. He did not
return till dinner-time. If he was silent and preoccupied
at that meal, both Cousin Clare and Dulcie
set it down as natural to his new sense of responsibility.
Lilias looked at him uneasily.
There was a hardness in his face which she had
never seen there before. She longed to catch
him alone and question him, but after dinner he[58]
purposely avoided her, and left a message that he
had gone to the stables. She would have liked to
confide in Cousin Clare, but she had given her
promise to keep the secret, and even Dulcie must
not share it yet. The girls slept in separate
rooms at home, so that when Lilias had said good
night to the family she was alone. She went to
bed, as a matter of course, but tossed about with
throbbing heart and whirling brain. Mr. Bowden's
information had effectually banished sleep.
In about an hour, when the house was absolutely
quiet, came a soft tap at her door. She jumped
up hastily, threw on her dressing-gown, and
opened it. Everard stood in the passage outside.

"May I come in? I want to speak to you,
Sissy! It's important," he whispered.

"I thought you had gone to bed," said Lilias,
admitting him, and dragging forward two basket
chairs. "What is it, Everard? Don't look like
that—you frighten me!"

Her brother had seated himself wearily, and
buried his head in his hands. He raised two haggard
eyes at her words.

"I've come to say good-by to you, Sis. I'm
going away to-night! Don't speak to me, for I'm
not in a mood for argument! Do you think that
I could stand by Grandfather's grave to-morrow,
when I know he has disinherited me? I tell you,
I can't. I'm not going to stay and hear the will[59]
read! If I'm kicked out of the property, at
least I'll keep my dignity. Why, everybody on
the estate believed I was the heir! Only this afternoon,
Rogerson, the new under-gardener, asked
me to keep him on, and Hicks said he'd serve me
as faithfully as he'd served the old Squire. How
could I face the servants when they knew the
Chase wasn't mine after all! The humiliation
would be intolerable! No! I've all the Ingleton
pride in me, and if I'm not to be master here,
I'll shake the dust of the place off my feet for ever.
Grandfather will have made some provisions
for you younger ones; he always promised
to do that, and it's right you should take it, but
as for me, if he's left me anything, I don't mean
to touch a penny of it—it must be all or nothing!
You others are welcome to my share, whatever it
is. I'm going out into the world to earn my own
living."

He spoke forcibly, and with desperate earnestness.
To Lilias, watching him anxiously, he
seemed in these few hours to have changed from
a boy into a man. Eager words rose to her lips,
but he stood up and stopped her.

"I've told you it's no use arguing! My mind's
absolutely made up. I've ordered Elton to have
the small car ready, and to drive me to Balderton
to catch the midnight express to town. It's the
last order I shall give in this house. He looked[60]
surprised, but he didn't dare to question me. To-morrow
everybody will know that I've no more
authority here than the kids. I'll be far away by
then, thank goodness."

"But, Everard, what are you going to do in
London? How can you earn your own living?"
pressed Lilias.

"Sweep a crossing, or go to sea! I don't care
two-pence what happens to me. Good-by, Sis,
I'm off! You may tell the others to-morrow, if
you like. No, I won't promise to write! You'll
be better without me. I've closed this chapter of
my life completely, and I'm going to begin a different
one. The two won't bear mixing up."

Giving his sister a hasty kiss, Everard left the
room and walked softly away down the passage.
A few minutes later, Lilias heard the sound of
wheels, and, looking through the window, saw the
rear lights of the car disappearing down the drive,
and away across the park. She went back to bed,
sobbing.

chapter v

The New Owner

The wild wind and rain, which for some weeks[61]
had blown from the north, changed suddenly to
a southerly breeze, and the sun shone out in all
its spring glory on the day of Mr. Ingleton's
funeral. Half the country-side came to do honor
to "the old Squire." He had been a favorite
in the neighborhood, and people forgot his autocratic
ways and remembered now only his many
kindnesses. The absence of Everard, who should
have been the chief representative of the family,
caused universal comment, and some rumor of
the state of affairs began to be passed round
among the servants and guests. Cousin Clare, to
whom Lilias had confided the secret of her
brother's flight, shook her head.

"He might at least have shown his grandfather
the respect of following him to his grave!" she
commented. "He owed that to him, at any rate.
I thought Everard would have realized such an
obvious duty. Whatever comes or does not come
to us in the way of legacies cannot free us from[62]
our obligations to the dead. It seems to me
hardly decent to be thinking about the disposal of
the property while its late owner is still unburied."

Lilias crept away, crying. She knew there was
justice in Cousin Clare's scathing judgment, but
she was sure the latter did not, could not, understand
the extent of Everard's bitter disappointment.
She did not care to say any more, or ask
questions, and could only wait until the whole sad,
miserable affair was over. Some of the guests
returned to the house after the funeral, and these,
with the family, were present when Mr. Bowden
read aloud the will of the late Squire of Cheverley
Chase. Like most testamentary documents, it
was couched in legal terms, but Lilias and Dulcie,
sitting in their black dresses beside Cousin Clare,
grasped the main features. There were certain
legacies to servants and friends, a provision for
each of the grandchildren and for Cousin Clare,
then the entire residue of the estate was
bequeathed to "Leslie, only child of my elder son,
Tristram."

All, except the few who had known the secret
beforehand, were filled with surprise that Everard,
who had always been regarded in the neighborhood
as "the young squire" should have been
passed over in favor of another heir. The
guests, however, after a word or two of sympathy,
took their departure, and went away to spread[63]
the news, leaving the family alone to discuss matters
among themselves.

"So I suppose the Chase isn't our home any
longer?" asked Dulcie, as the young Ingletons
clustered round their cousin for explanations.
"Who is this Leslie? We've never heard anything
of him before."

"I didn't know Uncle Tristram had a son!"
said Roland.

"Will everything be his instead of Everard's?"
asked Bevis pitifully.

"No, and yes," replied Cousin Clare. "The
estate is certainly left to Leslie, but, as it happens,
she is a daughter, and not a son."

Here was a surprise indeed!

"A daughter!" echoed Lilias. "The Chase
left to a girl!"

"Remember, she is the daughter of the elder
son, so that in your grandfather's opinion she was
the lawful heiress."

"But where does she live?"

"How old is she?"

"Why have we never seen her?"

"It's a long story," said Cousin Clare. "But,
without going into any details, I can tell you
briefly that years ago your grandfather and your
Uncle Tristram had a serious quarrel. It was
about a lady whom your grandfather thought his
elder son loved, and whom he very much wished[64]
him to marry. Well, we can't love to order, and,
though Tristram liked and respected the prospective
bride whom his father had chosen for him,
he had given his heart to a beautiful Italian girl,
and he insisted upon marrying her. The affair
caused a complete breach between them, but
shortly before Tristram's death he patched up a
half reconciliation, and sent home a photograph
of his wife and little daughter, whom he named
'Leslie' after her grandfather. I believe some
years ago an effort was made to bring the child
over to England to be educated, but her mother,
who by that time was married again and living in
Sicily, refused to give her up to her English relations.
I have never seen her myself, but she
must be quite fourteen years old by now. It will
be a great surprise to her to learn that she succeeds
to the property."

"And a great disappointment to us," said
Lilias bitterly. "It seems most unfair, when
we've lived at the Chase all these years, that this
interloper should step in and turn us out of our
home."

"I hate her!" declared Clifford, clenching his
little fists.

"No, no, dears! Don't take it in that way!"
begged Cousin Clare. "Remember that, after
all, the Chase was Grandfather's property, and
he had absolute right to leave it to whom he[65]
pleased. He stood in the place of parents to
you all, but that did not mean that he must will
the estate to Everard. Leslie is also his grandchild,
and belongs to the elder branch of the
family. He has left you each a most generous
legacy, so that there is plenty for your education.
I don't know what arrangements will be made for
you, but Mr. Bowden is one of your guardians,
and he is such a kind friend that I am sure he
can be thoroughly trusted to take good care of
your affairs. Try to look on the bright side of
things. Matters might be so much worse."

In Lilias's opinion, at any rate, matters were
quite bad enough. As Everard's particular chum,
she took his disinheritance more hardly than Dulcie.
She wondered what he was doing in London,
and if he would send her his address. It
angered her that Mr. Bowden took his departure
quite calmly, and seemed to think he would turn
up again in a few days, when he had spent the
money he had taken with him. She knew her
brother too well for that, and was sure that his
pride would not allow him to return either to Cheverley
or to Harrow in the character of a disappointed
heir. In that respect she could entirely
sympathize with him. She and Dulcie went back
to Chilcombe Hall at the beginning of the next
week, and, though all their companions were very
kind and sympathetic, it was humiliating to be[66]
obliged to acknowledge that the Chase was no
longer virtually their home. For the present, as
the heiress was a minor, the estate was in the
hands of the executors. Mr. Bowden decided to
send Bevis and Clifford to the same preparatory
school as Roland, and Cousin Clare, after various
letters and telegrams, departed on a mission to
Sicily, to interview Leslie's mother and stepfather.
What the purport of her visit might be, the girls
had as yet no hint.

The weeks dragged wearily on towards Easter.
Though Dulcie might throw herself into hockey
or basket ball, to Lilias school interests seemed
to have lost their former zest. She wondered
where they were to spend their holidays. Various
friends had extended invitations, but Mr. Bowden,
to whom everything must now be referred,
had not yet written to consent. At last came his
reply.

"I have arranged for you and your sister to
spend your holidays as usual at the Chase. Miss
Clare will be arriving back from Sicily, and will
bring your cousin Leslie with her. They would
like you to be at home to receive them."

Lilias, showing the letter to Dulcie in the privacy
of the Blue bedroom, simply raged.

"It's too bad! When we were so keen to go
to London, too! Why should we be there to[67]
receive Madame Leslie, I should like to know.
I don't want to see her!"

"Neither do I, only I do wonder what she's
like, all the same," ventured Dulcie. "Can she
speak English? And will she take over the whole
place, and make us feel it's hers?"

"No doubt she will. We shall have to take
very back seats indeed! It's just too disgusting
for words. I really think Mr. Bowden needn't
have forced this upon us."

"The girls will be ever so sorry for us!"

"I know; and that's just what I hate. I can't
bear to be pitied."

The Easter exodus seemed very different indeed
from the happy breaking up of last Christmas.
No "Rajah" and "Peri" with glossy coats and
arching necks came to take Lilias and Dulcie
from school, and give them the delight of a ride
over the hills, though Milner arrived with the
car, and told them that he was to fetch their
three younger brothers on the following morning.
The Chase seemed lonely and deserted with nobody
to welcome them except the servants. It
brought back vividly those few sad days of drawn
blinds, and the memory of the long black line
slowly disappearing down the drive. They had
supper by themselves, and spent a very quiet evening
reading in the drawing-room. The advent
next day of Roland, Bevis, and Clifford certainly[68]
enlivened the atmosphere, and things would have
felt like old times again had it not been for the
shadow of the arrival of the heiress. A telegram
had been received from Cousin Clare announcing
the train, and the car was to meet them at the
station on that same evening. Winder and the
other servants were bustling about getting the
house in order for its new mistress. A log fire
was lighted in the hall, and plants in pots were carried
in from the conservatory. The Union Jack
fluttered from over the porch, and the gardener
had put up some decorations with the word "Welcome."

Five very sober young people stood in the drawing-room
and watched as the car came up the
drive to the front door. Next minute they heard
Cousin Clare's cheerful voice calling to them, and
they came shyly forth into the hall.

Standing on the Persian rug in front of the log
fire was a girl of about fourteen, an erect, slender,
graceful little figure, with dark silky hair
hanging in loose curls, and wonderful bright eyes
that were dark and yet full of light and seemed to
shine like stars. For an instant she included the
Ingletons in one comprehensive glance, then her
whole face broke into eager smiles.

"I know which of you is which! Lilias, Dulcie,
Roland, Bevis, Clifford!" she declared, shaking
hands with each. "I'm very rich to have five[69]
new cousins all at once! To-morrow you must
show me everything, the rabbits and the dogs, and
the tame jackdaw! Oh yes! I've been hearing
about them and about you! Cousin Clare told
me just what you would be like. I kept asking
her questions the whole way!"

She spoke prettily, and without a trace of a foreign
accent; her manner was warm and friendly.
She looked, indeed, as if she would like to kiss
her new relations. She was so entirely different
from what the Ingletons had expected, that in their
utter amazement they could think of nothing to
say in reply, and stood gazing at her in embarrassed
silence. Cousin Clare saved the situation.

"Carmel, child, you're tired out!" she decreed.
"I'm going to take you straight upstairs
and put you to bed. Thirty-six hours of traveling
is too much for anybody, and you never slept in
the train. Come along! You must make friends
with your cousins to-morrow."

Long afterwards, when Dulcie tried to analyze
her first impressions of the new-comer, she realized
that what struck her most was the extreme charm
of her personality. We have all possibly gone
through a similar psychic experience of meeting
somebody against whom we had conceived a bitter
prejudice, and finding our intended hatred
suddenly veer round into love. The effect is like
stepping out into what you imagine will be a blizzard,[70]
and finding warm sunshine. The little mistress
of the Chase was very weary with her long
journey, but, when at last she was sufficiently
rested to be shown round her demesne, she made
her royal progress with an escort of half-fascinated
cousins.

"You'll like to see your property," Lilias began
shyly, leading the way into the garden.

"Please don't call it mine. I want you all to
understand, at the very beginning, that it's still
your home, and I don't wish to take it from you.
I have my own dear home in Sicily, and I hope to
go back there some day. While I'm in England,
let me be your visitor. That's all I want. I
can't bear to think that I'm taking anybody's place,
or anything that ought to belong to some one else.
If only Mother were here, she'd explain properly."

"But it is yours, Leslie!" objected Dulcie.

"In a way yes, but in another way, no! It
can be mine and yours at the same time. And
please will you call me Carmel? Leslie is a boy's
name, not a girl's. I'm always Carmel at home.
I didn't want to leave home at all, but Mother
and Daddy said I must go with Cousin Clare
when she had come all the way to Sicily to fetch
me. They promised it should be only a visit."

Lilias and Dulcie could hardly believe the evidence
of their ears. They had expected Carmel[71]
to be appraising her new property with keen satisfaction,
instead of which she appeared to be
suffering from a bad attack of homesickness.
She looked at the gardens, the stables, and all the
pets with interest, but without any apparent sense
of proprietorship. Her behavior was exactly
that of an ordinary visitor who admires a friend's
possessions. In her talk she referred constantly
to her home in Sicily, to her stepfather and her
younger brothers and sisters. They and her
mother were evidently the supreme center of her
life.

"We thought you'd only know Italian," confided
Dulcie, whose shyness was beginning to wear
off.

Carmel laughed.

"Of course I talk Italian too, but we always
speak English at home. Isn't it strange that
mother should have married two Englishmen? I
can't remember my own father at all, but Daddy is
a dear, and we're tremendous friends. I've
brought his photo, and Mother's and the children's.
I'll show them to you when I've unpacked."

Carmel's astounding attitude, while it amazed
her cousins in the extreme, was certainly highly
satisfactory. The boys, when they realized that
she had no desire to wrest their pets from them,
waxed suddenly friendly. With the naïve impulsiveness[72]
of childhood they gave her a full account
of what they had expected her to be.

"Perhaps I was rather frightened of you too,
till I saw you all," she confessed. "We've none
of us turned out such dreadful bogies, have we?"

"Do you know what I'm going to call you?"
said Clifford, slipping a plump hand into hers, and
gazing up into the shining brown eyes. "Princess
Carmel!"

And Carmel bent down and kissed him.

chapter vi

Princess Carmel

In the long talk which Cousin Clare had had[73]
with Mr. and Mrs. Greville in Sicily, it had been
arranged that Carmel was to be sent to school
with Lilias and Dulcie at Chilcombe Hall. The
new term, therefore, saw her established in a little
dressing-room which led out of the Blue bedroom,
and which by good luck happened to be vacated by
Evie Hughes, who had left at Easter.
It was soon spread over with Carmel's private possessions.
They were different from the equipment
of an ordinary English schoolgirl, and
aroused as much interest as their owner. First
there were the portraits of her mother, of her
stepfather, Mr. Greville, and of the little half-brothers
and sisters—Bertram, Nina, Vincent,
and Luigia—taken by an Italian photographer in
wonderfully artistic poses, and with classic backgrounds
of pillars and palm trees. Then there
were fascinating snapshots of her home, a white
Sicilian house with a vine-covered veranda, and
its lovely half-tropical garden with fountains and[74]
statues and pomegranate blossom, and trees hung
with ripe oranges and lemons. Carmel's things
seemed nearly all foreign. Her nightdress case
was of drawn linen beautifully embroidered by
the nuns at a convent; her work-box was of inlaid
wood from Sorrento; the trinkets on her
dressing-table were Italian; her clothes and shoes
bore the names of Paris shops. Some of the
books she had brought with her were in French;
the calendar that hung on her wall held pictures
of Naples and Vesuvius.

Carmel was undoubtedly a most unusual combination
of two nationalities. Though in some
respects she was English enough, there was a certain
little gracious dignity and finish about her
manners that was peculiarly southern. Clifford,
with a child's true instinct, had named her "Princess."
She was indeed "royal" with that best
type of good breeding which gives equal courtesy
to all, be it queen or beggar. In the school she
was soon an immense favorite. The girls admired
her attitude towards Lilias and Dulcie. If
she had posed as the heiress of the Chase, they
would probably have "sat upon her" thoroughly,
but, as she never put forward her claims in
that respect, they were disposed to show her decided
consideration, all the more so as she was
visibly fretting for her Sicilian home. She put
a brave face on things in the day-time, but at night[75]
she would be caught crying, and her eagerness for
letters was pathetic.

"Poor child! She's like an exotic plant transferred
to a northern soil!" said Miss Walters.
"We must try to settle her somehow. It won't
do for her to go about with dark rings round
her eyes. I wonder how we could possibly interest
her? I don't believe our school happenings
appeal to her in the least."

Certainly the new-comer went through the ordinary
routine of classes, walks, and games without
any display of enthusiasm. Gowan Barbour
tried to coach her at cricket, but the result was
not successful.

"It's a boy's game, and the ball is so hard, it
hurts my hands!" objected Carmel.

"Didn't you play cricket at home?"

"Never!"

"Or tennis?"

"On a cinder court. The sun scorched up our
grass court."

"What used you to do then, to amuse yourself?"

"We made paper dresses for the carnival, and
sometimes we acted. We used to have plays on
the veranda, or in the garden. And we went
on picnics to the hills. It was beautiful there in
spring, when the anemones were out in the fields."

"We're to have a picnic next Saturday," announced[76]
Gowan; "I heard Miss Walters telling
Miss Herbert so."

It was perhaps with special reference to Carmel
that Miss Walters had arranged an outing
for the school. It was bluebell time, and the
woods in the neighborhood would be a show. By
permission of the owner, Sir Ranald Joynson,
they were to have access to large private grounds,
and to be allowed to ramble in his famous rhododendron
gardens. None of the girls had ever
been there before, so it was a treat for all. Motor
wagonettes were to convey them all the six
miles; they were to start after an early lunch, and
to take tea baskets with them. Even Carmel
cheered up at the pleasant prospect.

"You have a treat before you!" Dulcie assured
her. "You may talk about your Sicilian
flowers, but just wait till you have seen an English
wood full of bluebells! There's nothing to beat
it in the whole world. I've often heard of Sir
Ranald Joynson's grounds. We're in luck to get
leave to go in them, because I believe he's generally
rather stingy about allowing people there.
I wonder how Miss Walters managed it."

"She's a clever woman," said Gowan. "She
always seems to manage to get what she wants.
Some people do!"

"I wish I did!" wailed Bertha. "I've
wanted a principal part in the French plays ever[77]
since I came to school, and Mademoiselle never
will give me one; I always have to be a servant,
or an extra guest, and speak about two lines!"

"Well, your French accent is so atrociously
bad, I don't wonder!" returned Gowan. "You
certainly wouldn't be a credit to Mademoiselle
in a principal part. And you're very stiff and
wooden in acting, too!"

"Thank you for your compliments!" sniffed
Bertha, much offended.

"Oh, don't be sarkie! I must tell the truth.
Cheer up! It's a picnic on Saturday, not a
French play!"

"Thank goodness it is!" rejoiced Dulcie. "I
hate Mademoiselle's French afternoons! I don't
know which is worst; to have to learn and act
yards of dialogue, or to sit in the audience and
listen while other people show off. I like out-of-doors
treats! I'm an open-air girl."

The occupants of the Blue bedroom decided
that it was high time something happened to stir
up Carmel, who was behaving more like an exile
than an heiress. Now the first excitement of her
arrival and unpacking was over, she had relapsed
into a piteous fit of homesickness.

"I believe she's crying again!" said Dulcie,
laying an ear to the door that communicated with
the dressing-room. "Do you think I ought to
go in to her?"

[78]"It's no use!" declared Lilias. "I went last
night and tried to comfort her, and I'm sure I only
made her cry harder. Best leave her to herself."

"Homesick people always do cry harder if
you sympathize," proclaimed Gowan. "I was
prefect of the junior dormitory at my other school
before I came here, and the new kids always
turned on the water works at first. I learnt how
to manage them. Sympathy makes them worse.
What you want is to switch their minds off thinking
about home, and make them enjoy school life.
Carmel will come round in time."

"Meantime," said Bertha, "she reminds me of
that picture in Miss Walters' study: 'The Hostage.'
You know the one I mean, the girl who's
standing leaning over the castle wall and gazing
out to sea, and evidently thinking of her own
country. I wonder if princesses who were sent
to be married to foreign princes felt homesick?"

"I dare say they did," grunted Gowan, "but
I'm sure my plan's the best for curing the complaint.
Smack them on the back and make them
cheer up, instead of letting them weep on your
shoulder. I don't like a damp atmosphere!"

To do Carmel justice, however acute her sense
of exile might be, she had not obtruded her woes
upon her schoolfellows, and had conducted her
weeping in secret. If sounds of distress filtered
through the door, it was only when matters[79]
seemed particularly hopeless. On Saturday she
came down dressed for the jaunt, and all smiles.

"Sit her between Edith and Bertha," commanded
Gowan, "and tell them they may be their
silliest! Make her laugh till she's weak. I'll
take a turn at her myself later. Don't let her
mope about in the woods alone. Keep close to
her, and make all the insane jokes you can. I
tell you I was homesick myself once, though you
mayn't believe it. I don't often dab my eyes
now, do I?"

"Here are the wagonettes," said Dulcie.
"Why, that driver has stuck up a flag! How
nice of him! It looks so festive. Bags me go
in his chariot."

It took a little while to arrange mistresses,
girls, and tea-baskets inside the two motors, but
at last everything was packed in, and they started
off in the direction of Bradstone. Other people
were out enjoying Saturday's holiday, and cars,
bicycles, and conveyances were frequent on the
road. Grinsdale Park, their destination, was approached
by great gates, outside which the wagonettes
stopped and unloaded their passengers.
Miss Walters, armed with Sir Ranald Joynson's
letter, called at the lodge for permission to enter,
and, her credentials being in strict order, the party
was duly admitted.

"Won't everybody who sees us go in be just[80]
green with envy?" rejoiced Edith. "Did you see
how those two cyclists tried to hang on to us and
push in too? Miss Walters looked at them most
witheringly. 'May I ask if you have a private
permit?' I heard her say to them. It squashed
them flat, and they beat a retreat."

"I believe Sir Ranald used to let the public in
at one time," said Noreen, "but people behaved
so atrociously that he had to stop. Rough boys
used to tear about and break the bushes, and take
the flowers, and do a great deal of damage."

"I know! I've heard about it," said Lilias.
"They went bird-nesting, too, and took all the
eggs. That was the absolute finish. Sir Ranald
is very keen on natural history, and he keeps these
grounds as a sort of bird sanctuary. I believe
quite rare kinds build here, and he never lets them
be disturbed."

"I wonder he gave us a permit to come!"

"Well, you see, most of the young birds are
fledged by now, and, besides, he wouldn't expect
us to go about climbing trees and robbing nests!"

Carrying the picnic-baskets amongst them, the
party started forth along the drive, but after ten
minutes' walking turned down a bypath into the
woods. They were at the edge of a beautiful
lake, and on one side of them stretched a gleaming
expanse of water, edged with shimmering
reeds, and on the other grew thick groves of trees[81]
with a carpet of wild hyacinths beneath. The sun
glinted through the new green leaves on to the
springing bracken and bluebells, and made long
rifts of light across the water, birds were flitting
about and twittering in the trees, and everywhere
there was that delicious scent of the woodlands,
a mixture of honey and flowers and warm moist
earth and damp moss, which is the incense nature
burns at the shrine of the goddess of spring.

It was so lovely that the party straggled considerably.
They could not help putting down the
picnic-baskets and leaving the path to explore and
gather flowers. There were so many delightful
surprises. Phillida and Noreen noticed a moorhen's
nest built on an overhanging bough that
swept the lake, and saw four tiny downy creatures
swimming away very fast to take cover; Ursula
found a specimen of the Truelove-knot, and triumphed
immensely, partly on botanical grounds
and partly because she regarded it as an omen of
early matrimony, though needless to say this latter
aspect of her rejoicing was not communicated
to Miss Walters, only chuckled over in private
with her intimate friends.

Knowing that the girls would not do any damage,
the mistresses allowed them to disperse, on
the understanding that they came at once when
they heard the Guide's whistle.

Dulcie, Carmel, and Prissie had wandered[82]
away down the banks of the little stream where
grew pale marsh violets, golden globeflowers, and
the sweet-scented fern. Pushing through the undergrowth
above the water, they found themselves
in a tiny natural clearing such as poets of
old would have described as a "a bower." Budding
trees encircled it, a guelder rose bush overtopped
it, and delicate fern-like moss sprang
through the grass underfoot. There were fairies,
too, in the bower; four little whitethroats were
flitting about in the sunshine. It was perhaps
their first exodus from the nest, for as yet they
were without the slightest sense of fear. They
allowed the girls to catch them, fondle them, and
stroke their lovely plumage; they would fly delicately
away, twittering with pleasure, then flit
back to the caressing hands like sprites at play.
Anything more innocent and beautiful it would
have been impossible to conceive; it was like a
glimpse into Paradise before the fear and dread
of man had passed over God's lesser creatures.
The girls stood absolutely fascinated, till at last,
attracted perhaps by some warning mother-signal,
their dainty bird friends took a sudden rapid
flight into the woods and were gone. Carmel
looked after them with shining eyes.

"It's like St. Francis of Assissi and his 'little
sisters the birds,'" she said softly. "Have you
read the Little Flowers of St. Francis, and how[83]
he preached to the swallows and they all flocked
round him and twittered? I've never seen birds
so tame as this! They aren't in Sicily, you can
hardly ever get near them there."

"They aren't in England either," said Dulcie,
"though our gamekeeper told us that if you can
just chance to see them when they first leave the
nest, they don't know what fear is. He once
found some newly-hatched wild ducks, and they
were perfectly unafraid, but when he passed the
place half an hour later, the mother duck gave a
call, and the little ones wouldn't let him come
anywhere near them. They'd had their lesson,
and learnt fear."

"I once brought up a starling that had tumbled
out of a nest," said Prissie, "and it was always
perfectly tame, and would let me stroke it, and
would perch on my hand. I had it for years.
Do you think we could have kept the whitethroats?"

"No, no!" said Carmel quickly. "I'd as soon
think of caging fairies! It would be a shame to
take them out of this lovely wood; it's their fairy-land.
I'm so glad Sir Ranald doesn't allow boys
to come in here! I thought at first it was rather
selfish of him, but I begin to understand. There
must be some quiet places left where the birds can
be undisturbed. I'm glad to have seen these!"

Miss Walter's whistle, sounding loudly in the[84]
distance, recalled them to the path. They found
the school very excited over a heronry which they
could see on an island in the lake. Some large
untidy nests were in the trees, and every now and
then a heron, with long legs outstretched behind
it, would sail majestically through the air from
the mainland.

"It would be a very fishy place if we could get
near," remarked Miss Hardy. "All the ground
underneath the nests would be strewn with bones
and remains. The herons fly a tremendous long
way in search of food, sometimes a radius of as
much as forty miles. Look! there's one fishing
in the lake over there."

"I like the whitethroats best," said Dulcie.
"I shouldn't care to hold a young heron in my
hand and cuddle it!"

At the lower end of the lake was a hill-side, and
down the slopes Sir Ranald had caused to be
planted a little forest of rhododendrons. They
were in their prime, and stretched a beautiful mass
of every shade from crimson to pink and lavender.
On the top of the hill was a summer-house,
a temple-like building with pillars and steps, and
here, by arrangement, they expected the lodge-keeper's
wife to supply them with boiling water
for their tea. It looked an ideal place for a picnic,
and they started at once to climb the steep
path that led among the rhododendrons to the[85]
summit. Up and up under the screen of delicate
blossom, they felt as if they were treading in some
tropical garden, and when they reached the summit,
and the view burst upon them of crimson-clad
slope, gleaming lake, and flecked blue sky,
they stood gazing with much satisfaction. "The
Temple," as the girls called the summer-house,
was a classic building with a terrace in front, and
here the school elected to sit, instead of in the
rather cramped room. There was a kitchen at
the back, and Mrs. Bates, the lodge-keeper's wife,
had lighted a fire and boiled kettles in readiness
for them.

"Sir Ranald and his friends come for lunch
here sometimes in the shooting season," she explained,
"so I'm used to getting tea and coffee
made. Take some chairs outside if you like.
You'd rather sit on the steps! Well, there's no
accounting for tastes! Give me your teapots,
and I'll warm them before you put the tea into
them."

Sitting in a row on the steps that led from the
"temple" to the terrace, the girls had a glorious
view, Carmel in especial seemed particularly to
enjoy herself.

"It's more like home than anything I've seen
yet!" she declared enthusiastically. "I could almost
fancy that this little piazza is on the slope
of Etna! The goatherds ought to be playing the[86]
'Pastorale' down there! I can nearly hear
them!"

"What's the 'Pastorale'?" asked Dulcie.

"It's the Sicilian National Dance. Every
body dances it—sometimes by sunlight and sometimes
by moonlight. Oh! it's a thing that gets
into your blood! Once you hear it played on the
pipes you have to jump up and dance—you
simply can't help it. There's magic in it!"

"Dance it for us now on the terrace!" suggested
Dulcie.

"I've no music!"

"Can't you hum it? Miss Walters, may Carmel
show us a Sicilian dance?"

"By all means, if she will!" acquiesced the
head-mistress.

"Go on Carmel!" commanded the girls.
"Show us how it goes!"

Thus urged, Carmel rose from her seat, and
went on to the terrace at the foot of the steps.
She looked for a moment or two at the crimson
slope of flowers and the shining lake, as if to put
herself into the right mental atmosphere, then,
humming a lively but haunting tune, she began
her old-world southern dance.

It was wonderful dancing, every action of her
alert young body was so beautifully graceful that
you forgot her modern costume and could imagine
her a nymph in classic draperies. Her arms kept[87]
motion with her tripping feet, and both were in
time with the tune that she was trilling. It
seemed a spontaneous expression of gaiety as
natural as the flight of a dragon-fly or the sporting
of a kitten. Her dark hair flew out behind her,
her eyes shone and sparkled, and her cheeks
flushed with unwonted color. For the moment
she looked the very incarnation of joy, and might
have been Artemis surprised in a Sicilian grove.
It was such a fresh aspect of Carmel that the girls
stared at her in amazement. From Princess she
had changed to Oread, and they did not know her
in this new mood. They gave her performance
a hearty clap, however, as she stopped and sank
panting on to the steps.

"You'll have to turn dancing-mistress, Carmel,
and give the others a lesson in your Pastorale,"
said Miss Walters. "It's a pretty step, and we
shall ask you to do it again when we give our
garden fête in aid of the 'Waifs and Strays.'
Don't you think our English scenery can compare
favorably even with your beloved Sicily?"

"It's very beautiful," admitted Carmel, "but
I miss Etna in the distance."

"Then you won't yield us the palm?" laughed
Miss Walters.

"I love it all, I do indeed, but Sicily will always
be the most beautiful place in the world to me,
because it's home!"

chapter vii

An Old Greek Idyll

After the picnic at Bradstone, Carmel, possibly[88]
from something she heard the girls say about
her, seemed to make a supreme effort to overcome
her homesickness, and to settle down as an
ordinary and rational member of the school. She
was undoubtedly a favorite. Even Lilias admitted
her charm, though she had not fallen under
her spell so completely as Dulcie. At the bottom
of her heart, Lilias could not quite forgive Carmel
for supplanting her brother at the Chase.
From the night he had said good-by and motored
to Balderton, not a word had been heard of Everard.
He had not returned to school, neither
had he visited any relations or friends, and indeed
since he stepped out of the car at the railway
station all trace of him seemed to have vanished.
Mr. Bowden did not take the matter too seriously.
He considered Everard was more of a
man now than a schoolboy, and that, if he had
fulfilled his threat of running away to sea, the
brief experience of a voyage before the mast
would do him no harm, and that when the vessel[89]
returned to port he would probably be only too
glad to come back and claim his share of the inheritance.

This easy view annoyed Lilias. She had a share
of the Ingleton pride, and she would have liked
his absence treated with more concern. She
thought Mr. Bowden ought to advertise in the
Agony Column of The Times, beseeching Everard
to return home, but their guardian only
laughed when she suggested such a course, and assured
her that her brother would turn up in time
when he was tired of managing for himself.

"I've been in the law for thirty years, my dear,
and I know human nature better than you do," he
declared indulgently.

"But you don't know Everard as I do!" protested Lilias.

She could not take Mr. Bowden's view of the
case. Everard had left the Chase in such deep
anger and resentment that the chances of a
speedy change in his outlook seemed remote.
Lilias longed to write to him, but knew of no address
to which it was possible to post a letter. She
worried often over his mysterious absence, and
was quite angry with Dulcie for not taking the
matter more keenly to heart.

"But Mr. Bowden and Cousin Clare think he's
all right!" protested that easy going young damsel.

[90]"How do they know? I think you might show
a little more interest in your own brother, who,
after all, has been treated extremely badly. It
seems to me hardly decent to circle round Carmel
as you do!"

Dulcie opened her blue eyes wide.

"Do I circle round Carmel? Well, really, and
why shouldn't I like her? She's my cousin, and a
jolly good sort too! I believe she'll give us all a
far better time at the Chase than Everard would
have done. He always wanted everything just
his own way. None of us ever had an innings
when he was at home. I never could see why the
eldest of a family should lord it so over the
others."

"You never had any proper sense of propriety!"
retorted Lilias indignantly. "I believe
in keeping up the traditions of the Ingletons, and
the estate has always descended strictly in the male
line. It's only right it should have been left to
Everard instead of to a girl, and I'll always say
so. There!"

Dulcie shrugged her shoulders.

"Say what you like, Sister o' Mine! The
twentieth century is different from the Middle
Ages, and people don't bother so much nowadays
as they did about descent and all that. The
owner of an estate hasn't to fight for it. Oh yes,
of course I'm glad I'm an Ingleton, but Carmel's[91]
an Ingleton too, as much as we are, and if the
Chase is hers we can't help it, and we may just as
well make the best of it!"

With which piece of philosophy, Dulcie turned
away, leaving Lilias to shake her head over the
decay of family feeling, and the degeneracy of
younger sisters.

It was perhaps Carmel's rendering of the Pastorale
dance that suggested to Miss Walters a
scheme of entertainment for the garden fête
which the girls were to give in aid of the "Homes
for Waifs and Strays." She decided that the garden
of Chilcombe Hall would make an excellent
background for some classic representations, and
that nothing could be prettier than old Greek costumes.
By a stroke of great good luck she managed
to engage Miss Adams, a former pupil who
had been studying classic dancing in Paris, to come
for a few weeks and train the performers. Miss
Adams was a tremendous enthusiast, and arrived
full of ideas which she was burning to teach to the
school. The girls were delighted with her methods.
It was quite a new phase of dancing to trip
barefooted on the lawn, holding up garlands of
flowers. They liked the exercises which she gave
them for the cultivation of grace, and practised
classic attitudes on all occasions, with more or less
success.

"You go about the school so exactly like Minerva!"[92]
complained Noreen to Phillida, rather
dismayed by the sudden change in her lively friend
from bounding spirits to a statuesque pose.
"Need you always walk as if you were thinking of
the shape of your ankles?"

Phillida shook her head carefully, so as not to
disarrange the Greek fillet she was wearing.

"It's been too hot lately to tear round and play
tennis. I think, too, that what Miss Adams says
is quite right. English girls are lacking in grace
and dignity. Just look at the way Ida and Joyce
are flopping about now. An artist would have
fits to see them!"

"Well, of course they're not sitting for their
portraits. Oh yes! I love dancing, but I don't
want to worry about being graceful all day long!"

"That's just the point, though," persisted
Phillida, who was a zealous convert. "The
dances are to make you graceful always. You so
get into the poetry of motion that it's quite impossible
for you ever to flop again!"

"Is it? Oh, Kafoozalum!" burbled Noreen,
exploding into a series of chuckles. "'She never
flopped again!' We ought to make a parody on
that from the poem of 'The White Ship.'

"Miss Adams to the school came down,

The classic wave rolled on:

And what was cricket's latest score

To those who danced alone?

[93]

"From dawn they practised attitudes

Until the sun did wane;

And fast confirmed in Grecian pose,

They never flopped again!"

"You may mock as much as you please!" retorted
Phillida, "but it's sheer envy because you
know you won't be chosen as a wood nymph.
Play cricket and tennis if you wish, by all means!
But I think when we're having a performance we
may just as well give our minds to it, and do it
properly, especially when Miss Adams is here to
teach us."

"Right you are! Float on, O goddess!
You're getting too ethereal for the school. I
shall be glad when the entertainment's over, and
we can have a cricket match again. It's decidedly
more in my line!"

Miss Adams, with all the enthusiasm of youth
and a new vocation, was determined to make the
entertainment a success. She spared no trouble
over constant rehearsals, and having weeded out
those girls who could not adapt themselves to her
methods, she kept the rest well at work in any
time that was available. She determined not
only to have dances, but to give in addition a
short Greek play, and selected for that purpose
the famous fifteenth idyll of Theocritus.

"But we're not to act it in Greek, surely!"
objected Edith in alarm.

[94]"It's bad enough to have to learn French plays!
We'd never be able to tackle Greek!" urged
Dulcie, absolutely aghast.

"Don't look so scared!" laughed Miss Adams.
"I'm not going to ask you to give it in Greek.
Probably few people would understand it if you
did! I have a delightful translation here. It
ought to take very well indeed with the audience.
Come and squat on the grass, and I'll read it
aloud to you first, and then I'll allot parts."

"Is it very stiff and educational?" groaned
Dulcie, obeying unwillingly.

"Wait and see! Come under the shade of
the lilac bush, it's so hot to sit in the sun."

The girls composed themselves into attitudes
of more or less classic elegance, and Miss Adams,
book in hand, began to read.

"IDYLL XV

"But, Miss Adams," interrupted Dulcie, "surely
this isn't an old Greek play? It sounds absolutely
and entirely modern!"

"As a matter of fact, it was written by
Theocritus about the year 266 b. c. It describes
the visit paid by two Syracusan ladies residing in
Alexandria to the festival of Adonis. Their
manners and talk then must have been very
similar to ours of to-day. Listen to the part
where they are getting ready to start.

"It's exactly like anybody going out to-day!"
commented Carmel, as Miss Adams came to a
pause.

"Why does it seem so modern?" asked Dulcie.

"Because it was written during the zenith of
Greece's history, and one great civilization always
resembles another. England of to-day is far
more in touch with the times of ancient Egypt,
Babylon, Greece and Rome, than with the Middle
Ages. Read Chaucer, and you find his mental
outlook is that of a child of seven. In the days
of the Plantagenets grown men and women enjoyed
stories of a crude simplicity that now only[97]
appeals to children. The human race is always
progressing in great successive waves of civilization;
after each wave breaks, a time of barbarism
prevails, till man is again educated to a higher
growth. We're living at the top of a wave at
present!"

"I remember," said Carmel, "when Mother
and Daddy took me to Rome, we saw the busts
of the Emperors, and of all sorts of clever people,
who'd lived in about the first century, and we all
said: 'Oh, aren't their faces just like people of
to-day?' We amused ourselves with saying one
was a lawyer, and another a doctor, and calling
some of them after our friends. Then we went
afterwards to an exhibition of sixteenth-century
portraits; perhaps the artists hadn't learnt to paint
well, but at any rate the faces were utterly different
from people of to-day. They seemed quite
another type altogether—not so intelligent or
so interesting. We were tremendously struck
with the difference."

"It marks my point," said Miss Adams.

"What else do Gorgo and Praxinoë do?"
asked Edith.

"They go into Alexandria for the festival, and
find the streets so crowded that they are almost
frightened to death, and have hard work not to
lose Eunoë, the slave girl, whom they have taken
with them; she nearly gets squeezed as they pass[98]
in at the door. They go into raptures over an
exhibition of embroideries. 'Lady Athene,'
says Praxinoë, 'what spinning-women wrought
them? What painters designed their drawings,
so true they are?' I haven't time to read it all
to you now, but I must just give you the little bit
where they quarrel with a stranger. It's too absolutely
priceless.

"Oh, do let me be Gorgo!" begged Dulcie.
"I love her; she's so smart and sarcastic. Isn't
it exactly like somebody talking during a concert,
and a person in the row in front objecting, and a
friend butting in with rude remarks? That's
what generally happens."

"Did people's accent matter in Greek as much
as it does in English?" asked Prissie.

"Evidently. The Alexandrian gentleman—who
sounds a decided fop—did not approve of a
Doric pronunciation. No doubt broad vowels
were out of fashion. I believe I shall give his[99]
part to Edith. It's a small one, but it has scope
for a good deal of acting."

"And who is to be Praxinoë, please?"

"I think I must choose Carmel. She ought to
act in an idyll by Theocritus, as he was a Sicilian
like herself. Would he find Sicily much altered,
Carmel, if he came back? Or is it the same after
two thousand years?"

"There are still goatherds on the mountains,
though we don't see wood nymphs now!"

"No, the wood nymphs have all trotted over
to England, and are going to give a performance
in aid of the 'Waifs and Strays!'" said Dulcie.
"I hope Apollo will remember them, and send
them a fine day, if he's anything to do with the
weather over here. Perhaps his sun chariot only
runs on the Mediterranean route."

"Surely he's got an aeroplane by now!"
laughed Edith. "We'll send him a wireless message
to remind him of his duty. 'Nymphs dancing
Thursday week at 2.30 p. m. Kindly cable
special supply of sunshine.'"

"Now, girls, you're getting silly!" said Miss
Adams, shutting her book and rising. "If we
want to make a success of our classic afternoon,
we've plenty of hard work before us. I'm going
on with costumes at present, and anybody who
cares to volunteer can fetch her thimble and a
needle and cotton, and hem a chiton."

chapter viii

Wood Nymphs

It needed a tremendous amount of rehearsing[100]
and preparation before Miss Adams judged her
classic performance fit for public exhibition. The
Greek garments, simple as they were, nevertheless
required sewing, and there were certain pieces
of scenery to be constructed. The other mistresses
helped nobly, though they were thankful
to be spared the organization of the proceedings,
and to leave the brunt of the burden to a specialist.
Tickets for the entertainment had been sold
in the neighborhood, and parents and friends of
the girls who lived within motoring distance had
promised to drive over.

"Cousin Clare is coming!" rejoiced Dulcie.
"She has two friends staying at the Chase, and
she'll bring them with her. If Milner drives
them, I shall ask Miss Walters if he may come
and watch too. He'd be so delighted to see it.
He loves anything of that kind. His own little
girl was May Queen at the village pageant two
years ago, and he's talked about it ever since."

[101]"I wrote to Mr. Bowden," said Lilias, "and
he's taken two tickets, but he's doubtful if he'll
find time to get off. He's always so busy."

"Never mind if he sent the money for them!"
consoled Edith. "Of course it's nice to have
big audiences, but it's money we're out for. We
want to make a decent sum."

"Miss Walters says the tickets have sold quite
well. Even if it's a doubtful day, and we don't
have a very big audience, we shall clear something,
at any rate."

"Oh, but I do hope people will come! It's so
disappointing to take all this trouble, and to act
to rows of empty chairs. What's going to happen,
by the by, if it's a wet day? Will it be put
off?"

"We shall have to have it in the big schoolroom.
It can't be put off, because Miss Adams
can only stay till Friday, and we couldn't get
through it without her."

"No, indeed! She's the directing genius of
it all!"

"Oh dear! It simply must keep fine!"

Never was weather more carefully watched.
All the old country saws and superstitions were
remembered and repeated. It became a matter
of vital importance to notice whether the scarlet
pimpernel was out, if the cattle were grazing with
their heads up hill, and whether a heron flew[102]
across the sky. Prissie took a candle into the
garden last thing before bed-time, to observe if
the lawn showed earthworms; the finding of black
slugs was considered to be rather fatal, and the
hooting of owls a decidedly bad omen. The goddess
of the English climate, however, is such a
fickle deity that there is never the least dependence
to be placed on weather prophecies. She always
seems to prefer to give a surprise. On the day
before the performance it rained; evening closed
in with a stormy sky, and every probability of waking
next morning to find a drizzle. Dulcie, putting
her head out of the window last thing, reported
driving clouds and a total absence of stars.

Yet, lo and behold! they woke to one of those
rare ethereal dawns that come only now and then
in a summer. The Blue bedroom faced east, and
over the line of laurels in the garden they could
watch pearl and opal flush into rosy pink before
the sun shone out in an almost cloudless sky. By
nine o'clock the wet grass of yesterday was beginning
to dry up, and Miss Adams, with the help of
Jones the gardener, was setting up her scenery,
and making initial arrangements for the business
of the afternoon.

She had contrived her open-air theater as far
as possible on Greek lines. There was no stage,
but the audience sat on chairs on the grass, and on
cushions and rugs placed down a bank that commanded[103]
the lawn. The performance was to begin
at 3 o'clock, and soon after 2.30 visitors began
to arrive. There was quite a long row of cars in
the drive, bicycles were stacked against the veranda,
and two ponies were put up in the stable.
Cousin Clare and her friends came in excellent
time, driven—much to Dulcie's satisfaction—by
Milner, who in company with the other chauffeurs
received a cordial invitation from Miss Walters
to witness the show.

"And wasn't it nice of him?" said Dulcie to
Carmel, "he insisted on giving a shilling to the
funds. I told him it wasn't expected, but he said
he should like to, if we didn't mind. Mind!
Why, we want all the money we can get!"

"I think Milner is an old dear!" agreed Carmel.

Mr. Bowden had actually managed to get away
from his office after all, and had brought a niece
with him in the side-car of his motor-bicycle. He
looked quite beaming, as if he meant to forget the
law for a few hours, and to enjoy himself. He
sat next to Cousin Clare, chatting affably and admiring
the arrangements.

A piano had been carried out on to the lawn
for the occasion, and Miss Lowe, the music mistress,
took her seat at it. She was supported by
a small school orchestra of three violins and
violoncello, and together they struck up some[104]
Eastern music. When it was well started there
was a flashing of white among the bushes on the
farther side of the lawn, and out came tripping a
bevy of charming wood nymphs. They were all
clad in Greek chitons, very delicately draped, their
hair was bound with gold fillets, and their arms
and feet were bare. They held aloft garlands of
flowers, and circling on that part of the lawn
which formed the stage, they went through the
postures of a beautiful and intricate classic dance.

Viewed against the background of trees and
bushes it was a remarkably pretty performance.
There were no accessories of limelight or
"make-up" to give a theatrical or artificial effect;
the afternoon sunshine fell on the girls in
their simple costumes, and showed a most natural
scene as their bare feet whirled lightly over the
grass in time to the music, and their uplifted arms
waved the long garlands. There was a tremendous
clapping as they retired into the shelter of
their classic groves.

The next item on Miss Adams' program was
rather ambitious. An upright screen of wood,
covered with black paper, was placed upon the
lawn to serve as a background, and in front of
this Hester Wilson and Truie Tyndale, attired
in Venetian red chitons, performed a Grecian
dance. The effect was exactly a representation of
an ancient Etruscan vase, with terra cotta figures[105]
on a black background, and when at the end they
stood posed as in a tableau, the likeness was complete.
Though scarcely so pretty as the garland
dance, it was considered very clever, and met with
much applause.

For the Idyll XV of Theocritus, Miss Adams
had followed Greek tradition, and had used only
the scantiest and simplest of scenery. A few
screens and stools did service for a house, a tiger-skin
rug was flung on the grass, and a brass waterpot,
brought by Miss Walters from Cairo, completed
the idea of a classic establishment. It was
better to have few accessories than to present anachronisms,
and place modern articles in an Alexandrian
home of the third century b. c.

Dulcie and Carmel, as Gorgo and Praxinoë,
made an excellent contrast, the one carrying out
the fair Greek type and the other the dark. They
played their parts admirably, rendering the dialogue
with much spirit and brightness, and with
appropriate action. Praxinoë, the fashionable
belle of the third century b. c., donned her garments
for the festival with a mixture of coquetry
and Greek dignity that delighted the audience;
Gorgo's passage of arms with the Stranger of
Alexandria, was smart and racy, while Edith, as
the affected "man-about-town" of the period was
considered a huge success. As nobody in the
school was young enough to take Zopyrion, they[106]
had borrowed the gardener's three-year-old baby,
and had trained him to walk on, holding the hand
of Eunoë. He was a pretty child, and dressed
in a little white chiton, with bare legs and feet, he
looked very charming, and quite completed the
scene. His round wondering eyes and evident
astonishment were indeed exactly what was required
from him to sustain the part.

The wood nymphs, with some slight additions
of costume, acted the crowd through which Gorgo
and Praxinoë had to push their way and pilot their
slaves. They pushed and hustled with such vigor
as amply to justify the episode where Praxinoë's
muslin veil was torn in two, and the whole party
would have been separated, and Eunoë altogether
lost, but for the help of an Alexandrian gentleman.

Carmel brought out her speech of thanks with
much unction.

And Nesta, as the courteous stranger, responded
with a bow which, if not absolutely historically
correct for the period, was certainly a
combination of the good manners of all the ages.

As it was difficult to find enough items for an[107]
entirely classical program, the second half of the
entertainment was to be miscellaneous, and during
the short interval a delegate from the "Waifs
and Strays Society" was to give a short address
explaining the work of the Homes.

Now Carmel was down in Part II to dance the
Pastorale, and she ran into the house to change
her Greek chiton for the dress of a Sicilian peasant.
She went through the veranda and the open
French window, and straight upstairs to her bedroom.
She had brought nobody with her, because,
for one thing, she needed no help, and for
another she was hot and excited, and felt that she
would like a few minutes' rest quite to herself.
There was no great hurry, so she leisurely put on
the pretty scarlet and white-striped skirt, the velvet
apron, the white bodice and laced corsage,
clasped the necklace round her throat, and twisted
the gay silk handkerchief as a head-dress on her
dark hair. It was a prettier and more effective
costume even than the Greek one. There was an
Eastern variety of color in it that suited her better
than the simplicity of the chiton. She had completed
it, from the gold bangles on her wrists to
the scarlet stockings and neat shoes, and was just
turning to run downstairs again, when she suddenly
stopped and listened.

Carmel's little bedroom was really a dressing-room,
and possessed two doors. One led into the[108]
passage, and the other communicated with the
Blue bedroom. This latter door was ajar just a
couple of inches, and through the opening came
the sound of a drawer pulled out. For a moment
Carmel thought that Dulcie and Bertha must have
come upstairs, and she was on the point of calling
to them, when some strong and mysterious instinct
restrained her. Instead, she walked softly across
the floor, and peeped through the chink. It was
no cousin or schoolfellow who was in the next
room, but a slight fair man—an utter stranger—who
was hastily turning over the contents of
the drawer, and slipping something into his pocket.

For a moment Carmel's heart stood still. She
realized instantly that she was in the immediate
vicinity of a burglar. Seeing the entertainment
advertised by a placard on the gate, he must have
entered the garden and waited his opportunity to
slip into the house while everybody was outside
watching the performance. He was apparently
laying light fingers upon any article which took his
fancy.

Carmel's first and most natural impulse was to
tear downstairs and give warning of what was
happening. Then it occurred to her that while
she did so the thief would very possibly make his
escape. If only she could trap him. But how?
Her fertile brain thought for a second or two,
then evolved a plan.

[109]Very quietly she withdrew the key from the
door which led out of her bedroom to the passage,
and locked it on the outside. So far, so good: if
Mr. Burglar went into the dressing-room he could
not escape. Now she must be prepared to take
a great risk. The key of the Blue bedroom was
on the inside; she must open the door, withdraw
it, and lock it on the outside before the thief could
stop her. It was possible that he had calculated
on the double exit, and that, hearing a noise behind
him, he would make a dash for the dressing-room.

With shaking legs, and something going
round and round like a wheel inside her chest, she
approached the Blue bedroom door, and opened it
softly. As she had anticipated, the intruder had
probably laid his plans, for at the first sound he
turned his head, then slipped like a rabbit into the
dressing-room. No doubt an unpleasant surprise
awaited him there, for as Carmel's trembling
fingers drew out the key, and locked the door from
the passage side she could hear the handle of her
own bedroom door moving.

"He's probably got skeleton keys, or a jemmy,
or something like they use on the cinema, and will
be out in a minute, but I'll get a start of him!"
she thought, and tearing down stairs like the wind,
she literally flew into the garden, and gasped forth
the thrilling news.

[110]"It's the Blue bedroom—watch the window
or he may jump out!" she added quickly.

There was an instant rush towards the house;
Miss Walters, with Milner and four other chauffeurs
to support her, dashed up stairs, Mr. Bowden
and a crowd of visitors took their stand under
the windows. Shouts from the bedroom presently
announced that the burglar had been secured, and
after a while he was led down stairs with his
wrists fastened together by a piece of clothes line,
and guarded on each side by two determined looking
men, who hustled him into a car, and drove
him off at once to the police station at Glazebrook.

The excitement at Chilcombe Hall was tremendous.
It was of course impossible to go on with
the entertainment. Mistresses, girls, and guests
could do nothing but talk about the occurrence.
Carmel was questioned, and gave as minute and
accurate an account as she could of exactly what
had happened. She was much congratulated by
everybody on her presence of mind.

"I don't know how you dared do it!" shivered
Dulcie. "He might have shot you with a revolver!"

"You're a brave girl!" said Miss Walters approvingly.
"If it hadn't been for your prompt
action, in all probability he would have got away."

[111]"I didn't feel brave. I was scared to death!"
admitted Carmel.

Although she would not acknowledge any particular
credit in her achievement, Carmel was necessarily
the heroine of the hour. Miss Walters,
feeling that everybody must be in need of refreshment
after such an event, ordered tea to be served
immediately, and soon the urns were carried out
into the garden, where tables had already been
set with cups and saucers and plates of sandwiches
and cakes.

After a short time Mr. Bowden, who had accompanied
the burglar to the police station, returned
to report that their prisoner was safely
quartered in a cell, and a formal charge had been
lodged against him, which in due course of law
would lead to his trial for house-breaking.

"The police think he is not an old offender,
but some cyclist who was passing, and probably
yielded to a sudden temptation," he explained.
"Nevertheless, he'll get a sharp sentence, for
there has been too much of this sort of thing going
on lately, and the judges are inclined to be
very severe on it, and rightly too, or nobody's
home would be safe. Thank you, Carmel! Yes,
I'll take another cup of tea, please! And then I
want to see you do that Sicilian dance before I set
off on my travels again. Oh yes! I'm not going
away without!"

[112]Poor Carmel was still feeling too much upset
to relish dancing, but Mr. Bowden pressed the
point, and other guests joined their persuasions,
so finally it was decided to give at least a portion
of the second part of the program, and the audience
again took their seats on the lawn, leaving
several people, however, to guard the house.

"It's not likely there'll be another burglar on
the same afternoon; still, he might have accomplices
about," said Miss Walters. "I shall never
feel really safe again, I'm afraid. We shall all
be horribly nervous for a long time."

Only the most striking items in Part II were
selected for performance, as it was growing late,
and most of the guests would soon have to take
their leave. There was an affecting tableau of
the parting of the widowed Queen of Edward IV
from her little son, Richard, Duke of York; a
charming pageant of the old street cries of London,
in which dainty maidens in eighteenth-century
costumes appeared with bunches of "Sweet
Lavender," and baskets of "Cherry Ripe," and,
after singing the appropriate songs, went the
round of the audience and sold their wares.

Noreen, who was the star of the elocution class,
recited a poem describing the sad experience of a
typical little waif, and his reception in the Home.
It was a pretty piece, and had been composed expressly[113]
for the Society by a lady who often wrote
for magazines.

Then, last of all, came Carmel's Sicilian dance.
Miss Lowe had fortunately been able to obtain
the score of the Pastorale, and with music and
costume complete the performance was an even
greater success than it had been on the terrace at
Bradstone. People clapped the little figure,
partly for her charming dancing and partly for
her pluck in trapping the burglar, so that altogether
she received quite an ovation.

"We shan't forget the 'Waifs and Strays'
afternoon in a hurry," said Lilias, as she tidied
her possessions afterwards, for it was her drawer
that the burglar had turned upside down in his
search for valuables. "I feel I want to sleep
with a revolver under my pillow!"

"If you did, I'd be far more afraid of you than
of the burglar!" protested Bertha. "I know
you'd let it off at the wrong person. I don't suppose
anybody else is likely to come burgling here,
so you needn't alarm yourself!"

"But if they do, Miss Wiseacre?"

"Then I should turn them over into the dressing-room,
to be dealt with at her discretion by
Princess Carmel!" laughed Bertha. "I believe
she's equal to catching one of them in a mousetrap
if she gets the opportunity!"

chapter ix

The Open Road

It was fortunate for Carmel that her first experience[114]
of England should come in the spring
and early summer. Had she arrived straight
from sunny Sicily to face autumn rains or winter
snows, I verily believe her courage would have
failed, and she would have written an urgent and
imploring appeal to be fetched home. For the
white, vine-covered house that looked over the
blue waters of the Mediterranean was still essentially
"home" to Carmel. She had been born
and bred in the south, and though one half of her
was purely English, there was another side that
was strongly Italian. She was deeply attached to
all her relations and friends in Sicily, and from her
point of view it was exile to live so far away from
them. The fact that she was owner of the Chase
was, in her estimation, no compensation whatever
for her banishment from "Casa Bianca." She
made a very sweet and gentle little heiress, however.
As yet she was mistress only in name, for
during her minority everything was left in the[115]
hands of Mr. Bowden and a certain Canon Lowe,
who were guardians to all Mr. Ingleton's grandchildren,
and kept the Chase open as a home for
them. The three girls returned there from Chilcombe
Hall at the end of the term, and were
joined by the younger boys from their preparatory
school.

For a week or two they enjoyed themselves in
the grounds and the park. There was much to
show Carmel, and she was happy sitting in the
garden or wandering in the woods. She soon
made friends with the people on the estate. The
gamekeeper's children would come running out to
meet her, and stand round smiling while she
hunted in her pocket for chocolates; Milner's little
girl adored her, and even the shy baby at the lodge
waxed friendly. Carmel was intensely fond of
children, and the affection which she had bestowed
on younger brothers and sisters at home cropped
out on every occasion where her life touched that
of smaller people. To Roland, Bevis, and Clifford
she was a charming companion. She would
go walks with them in the woods, help them to
arrange their various collections of butterflies,
foreign stamps, and picture post cards, and play
endless games of draughts, halma, or bagatelle.

"You slave after those boys as if you were their
nursery governess!" remarked Lilias one day,
just a little nettled that Clifford ran instinctively[116]
to Carmel for sympathy instead of to his sister.
"I promised to help them with those caterpillar
boxes to-morrow, and so I will, if you'll leave
them. I really can't be bothered to-day."

Carmel yielded instantly. Part of her intense
charm was the ready tact with which she was careful
never to usurp the place of any one else. She
put aside the muslin that was to form covers for
the boxes, and slipped her scissors back into the
case.

Clifford, however, who was a budding naturalist,
and most keen on collecting, was highly disgusted.

"I want my boxes to-day!" he wailed. "I've
no place to put my caterpillars when I find them.
They crawl out of the old boxes. Why shouldn't
Carmel make me some? I know hers would be
beauties."

"Lilias will make you some nicer ones to-morrow,"
urged his cousin. "Suppose we take our
butterfly nets on to the heath to-day, and try to
find some 'blues.' You haven't a really nice
specimen, you know. And I think we might find
some moths on the trees in the wood, if we look
about carefully. It's worth trying, isn't it?"

"Oh yes! Do let us! Shall we start now?"
agreed Clifford, much mollified.

On the whole the three girls got along excellently,
but if there was any hint at disturbance it[117]
generally arose from Lilias, whose pride would be
up in arms at the most absurd trifles. She was
annoyed that Carmel was asked to give away the
prizes at the village sports, and showed her dissatisfaction
so plainly that her sweet-tempered
cousin, rather than have any fuss, solved the situation
by asking Cousin Clare to perform the
ceremony instead, considerably to the disappointment
of the committee, who had thought the new
heiress was the appropriate patroness.

Lilias and Dulcie took diametrically opposite
views about the Chase. The former stuck firmly
to her opinion that it ought to have been
Everard's, that her brother was an ill-used outcast,
and that it was only sisterly feeling to resent
seeing anybody else in his place. Her attitude to
Carmel was almost as strong as that of King
Robert of Sicily in Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside
Inn towards the angel who had temporarily
usurped his throne.

Dulcie, on the contrary, had always chafed
against Everard's assumption of superiority and
authority. He had been left the same generous
legacy as the rest of the family, and had only to
come back and claim his portion when he wished.
If anybody was to have the Chase, she really preferred
that it should belong to Carmel, who never
obtruded her rights, and seemed ready for her
cousins to enjoy the property on an exact equality[118]
with herself. The two girls were great friends:
they would go out riding together while Lilias
went shopping in the car with Cousin Clare; they
practised duets, and both made crude attempts at
sketching the house. Their tastes in books and
fancy-work were somewhat similar, and they
would sit in the shade in the afternoons stitching
at embroidery and eating chocolates.

Three weeks of the summer holidays passed
rapidly away in this fashion. Carmel was glad to
have the opportunity of getting to know the
Chase, and admitted its attractions, though her
heart was still in Sicily.

Towards the end of August the party broke up
and scattered. Carmel had received an invitation
from English relations of her stepfather to
join them on a motor tour; the three little boys
were to be taken to rooms at the seaside by Miss
Mason, their late governess; Lilias and Dulcie
went to stay with friends, and Cousin Clare had
arranged to attend a conference. She agreed,
however, that when Lilias and Dulcie returned
from their visit, they should go with her in the
car for a week-end to Tivermouth, to see how the
boys were getting on.

"If you'll promise we may stay at an hotel!"
stipulated Lilias. "I wouldn't spend a week-end
in rooms with those three imps for the world.[119]
I'd like to see them, but not at too close quarters."

"It's quite improbable that their landlady
would have bedrooms for us," said Cousin Clare.
"So in any case we should be obliged to stop at
an hotel. In this crowded season I shall engage
rooms beforehand."

"Hurrah!" triumphed Dulcie, who was anxious
for a grown-up experience. "I must say I
hate staying with the boys near the beach; the sitting-room's
always overflowing with their seaweed
and other messes."

"What a joke if I were to turn up at the hotel
too!" said Carmel. "I believe the Rogers are
going down to Devonshire. I shall tell them the
date you'll be at Tivermouth. They'll possibly
like to meet you."

"Oh, do! It would be such fun!" agreed
Dulcie. "We'd have an absolutely topping time
together. Persuade them as hard as you can!"

"I'll do my best!" agreed Carmel.

As it is impossible to follow the adventures of
everybody, we will concern ourselves particularly
with the experiences of our heroine, who was to
take her first motor tour among English scenery.
The party in the comfortable Rover car consisted
of Major and Mrs. Rogers, their daughter Sheila,
their guest Carmel, and a chauffeur. Major
Rogers was still suffering from the effects of[120]
wounds, and was more or less of a semi-invalid, a
condition which made him fussy at times, and too
independent at others, for directly he felt a trifle
better he would immediately begin to break all the
rules that the doctors had laid down for his treatment.
He was an amusing, humorous sort of
man, who would jest between spasms of pain, and
generally found something to laugh at in the various
episodes of their journey. There is a laughter,
though, that is more the expression of supreme
courage than of genuine mirth, and the drawn
lines round the Major's mouth told of sleepless
nights and days of little ease, and of trouble that
hurts worse even than physical pain; for one son
lay on a Belgian battle-field, another on the
heights near Salonika, with no cross to mark the
grave, and a third deep under the surging waters
of the Atlantic.

Mrs. Rogers was Mr. Greville's sister, and for
that reason, though she was no real relation, Carmel
called her Aunt Hilda. She had been a belle
in her youth, and she was still pretty with the pathetic
beauty that often shines in the faces of those
who have suffered great loss. Her once flaxen
hair was almost entirely gray, but she had kept
her delicate complexion, and there was a gentle
sweetness about her that was very attractive.

Her daughter was an exact replica of what she
herself must have been at nineteen, though Sheila[121]
was going through an uncomfortable phase, and
affected to despise the country, to be nervous of
motoring, and to long to be back in town again.
She was quite kind to Carmel, but treated her with
the distantly indulgent attitude of the lately-grown-up
for the mere schoolgirl. It was evident
that she regarded the whole tour as more or less
of a nuisance, and just a means of killing time
until she could start off for Scotland to join a certain
house-party to which she had been invited,
and where she would meet several of her most particular
friends.

"I'm sorry we couldn't ask one of your cousins
to come with you, dear," said Mrs. Rogers to
Carmel, "but there isn't room in the car for any
one else. It's a good opportunity for you to see
something of England. It's all very different
from Sicily, isn't it? You'll feel your first winter
trying, I'm afraid; we certainly lack sunshine in
this climate."

"Give me Egypt," said Major Rogers. "It's
this perpetual damp in the air that makes things
melancholy over here. Why, except in the height
of summer it's hardly ever fit to sit out-of-doors.
I like a place where I need a sun helmet."

"You and Mother are salamanders, Daddy!"
declared Sheila. "I believe you'd enjoy living in
a hot-house! Now, I like Scotland, with a good
sharp wind across the moors, and a touch of mist[122]
in it to cool your face. I like either town or
mountains. If I can't walk down Regent Street,
then I'd tramp over the heather, but I don't admire
ordinary English scenery. It's too tame."

"You surely don't call this tame?" replied her
father, pointing at the village through which they
were motoring, "it's one of the show bits of the
Midlands, and an absolute picture. Where are
your eyes, child?"

But Sheila was perverse, and refused to evince
any enthusiasm, and ended by pulling out a novel
over which she chuckled, quite regardless of the
scenery, and only tore herself from the book to
ask for the box of chocolate marsh mallows that
she had bought at the last town where there was
a good confectioner's.

Carmel would certainly have found Dulcie, or
even Lilias, a more congenial companion than
Sheila, but she nevertheless managed to enjoy herself.
She loved the country, and was delighted
with the variety of the English landscape.
Though less rich than the vineclad south, the
greenness of its fields and hedges never failed to
amaze her, and she was fascinated by the quaint
villages, their thatched roofs, church spires, and
flowery gardens. They had been running through
Gloucestershire en route for Somerset and Devon,
and were to call a halt at various show places on
the way. Major Rogers, poring over map and[123]
guide books, would plan out their daily route each
morning at the breakfast table in the hotel.

"With good luck and no punctures we ought to
reach Exeter to-night easily," he remarked, looking
through the window of an old-fashioned country
inn into the cobbled street where their luggage
was being strapped on to the car.

"But, my dear!" remonstrated his wife.
"Why in such a hurry to reach Exeter? Let us
stay the night at Wells, and look over the cathedral;
then we can spend a few hours in Bath
too."

"Daddy and Johnson always like to tear along
at about a hundred miles an hour," said Sheila.
"Except as a means of getting along the road, I
hate motoring! I always think Johnson is going
to run into everybody. He shaves his corners so
narrowly, and doesn't give conveyances enough
room. I call him very reckless."

"Nonsense! He's an excellent driver!" declared
her father. "One of the best chauffeurs
we've ever had, though he's only a young chap.
He's wonderfully intelligent too. I'd trust him
with repairs as well as any man at a garage. A
civil fellow, too."

"Yes, his manners are really quite superior,"
agreed Mrs. Rogers, stepping on to the balcony
and watching the smart, good-looking figure of
the young chauffeur, who was opening the bonnet[124]
of the car for some last inspection. "Personally
I feel perfectly safe when Johnson is driving
me. I'm never nervous in the least!"

"And I'm in such a perpetual panic that I often
read so as not to look at the road," confessed
Sheila. "I do wish you'd ask him to sound his
horn oftener in these narrow roads. The banks
and hedges are so high, you can't see anything
that's coming till it's almost upon you."

"Well, it certainly might be a wise precaution,"
said Major Rogers. "In motoring you
have to guard against the stupidity of other people,
and that fellow in the gray two-seater nearly
charged straight into us yesterday. A regular
road-hog he was!"

If Johnson had hitherto been a little slack in
respect of sounding his horn, it was the only fault
of which his employers could complain. He kept
the fittings of the car at the very zenith in the
matter of polish, he was punctuality personified,
and most skilful at the tedious business of repairing
or changing tires; he rarely spoke addressed,
but when questioned he seemed to have a
good acquaintance with the country, knew which
were the best roads, and what sights were worth
visiting in the various places through which they
passed. All of which are highly desirable qualities
in a chauffeur, and a satisfaction to all concerned.

[125]It was the general plan of the holiday to start
about ten or eleven o'clock, take a picnic-basket
with them, lunch somewhere in the woods, arrive
at their next halting-place about three or four, and
spend the remainder of the day in sight-seeing, or
in Major Rogers' case resting, if he were suffering
from a severe attack of pain.

As they motored across Somerset in the direction
of Wells, they chose for their mid-day stop
a lovely place on the top of a range of low hills.
A belt of fir trees edged the roadside, and through
these a gate led into a field. As the gate was open
they felt licensed to enter, and to encamp upon a
sunny bank under a hedge. One of the motor
rugs was spread for Major Rogers, and Mrs.
Rogers, Sheila, and Carmel sat severally on an air
cushion, a tree-stump, and on the grass. There
was a grand view over a slope of cornfields and
pastures, and though the sun was warm there was
a delicious little breeze to temper the heat. Not
that it was too hot for any one except Sheila, who
panted in the shade while the others exulted in
the sunshine. Carmel, outstretched upon the
grass, basked like a true daughter of the south,
throwing aside her hat, somewhat to Mrs. Rogers'
consternation.

"You'll spoil your complexion, child! I'm
sure your mother never allows you to go hatless
in Sicily! Put your handkerchief over your face.[126]
Yes, I like to feel the warmth myself, though not
on my head. This is the sort of holiday that does
people good, just to sit in the open air."

"It's a rabbit holiday here," murmured the
Major lazily. "Didn't you read that supreme
article in Punch a while ago? Well, it was about
a doctor who invented a drug that could turn his
patients into anything they chose for the holidays.
A worried mother of a family lived an idyllic
month at a farm as a hen, with six children as
chickens, food and lodging provided gratis; a
portly dowager enjoyed a rest cure as a Persian
cat at a country mansion; some lively young people
spent a fortnight as sea-gulls, while the hero
of the article was just about to be changed into a
rabbit when——"

"When what happened?"

"The usual thing in such stories; the maid
broke the precious bottle of medicine that was to
have worked the charm, and when he hunted for
the doctor to buy another, the whole place had disappeared."

"How disappointing!"

"Yes, but a field like this, with burrows in it,
is a near substitute. I feel I could live up here.
Suppose I buy a shelter and get leave to erect it?"

"Then it would promptly rain, Daddy, and
you'd be in the depths of misery and longing for a
decent hotel!" declared Sheila.

[127]To suit Major Rogers' humor they stayed
nearly two hours in the field. The quiet was just
what his doctor had ordered for him. He had
spent a restless night, and, though he could not
sleep now, the air and the sunshine calmed his
nerves. He seemed better than he had been for
days, and enjoyed the run downhill into Wells.

As they were stepping out of the motor at the
hotel, Carmel gave an exclamation of concern.

"I've lost my bracelet!" she declared.
"What a nuisance! Wherever can it have
gone?"

Johnson, the chauffeur, immediately searched
on the floor and cushions of the car, but without
success. No bracelet was there.

"When did you have it last?" asked Mrs.
Rogers.

"In the rabbit field where we had lunch. I
remember clasping and unclasping it, and I suppose
it must have slipped off my wrist without my
noticing. Never mind!"

"I'm sorry, but it certainly is too far to go
back and look for it, dear," said Mrs. Rogers.

"Was it valuable?" asked Sheila.

"Oh no, not at all! Only Mother gave it to
me on my last birthday. It doesn't really matter,
and of course it can't be helped now."

Carmel was vexed, nevertheless, with her own
carelessness. The little bracelet had been a favorite,[128]
and she hated to lose it. She missed the
feel of it on her wrist. Her first thought when
she woke next morning was of annoyance at the
incident. As she walked down to breakfast in the
coffee-room, the chauffeur was standing by the
hall door. He came up at once, as if he had been
expressly waiting for her, and handed her a small
parcel. To her utter surprise it contained the
missing bracelet.

"Johnson!" she called, for he had turned
quickly away. "Johnson—oh, where did you
find this? Not in the car, surely?"

"No, Miss Carmel, it was just where you
thought you had left it—in the field where you
had lunch. I got up early and fetched it before
breakfast," replied Johnson pausing on the doorstep.

"You went all that way! How kind of you!
Thank you ever so much!" exclaimed Carmel,
clasping her bangle on her wrist again. "I can't
tell you how pleased I am to have it!"

But Johnson, avoiding her eyes, and seeming
anxious to get away from her thanks, was already
out of the front door, and half-way across the
courtyard to the garage.

"I wonder if English men-servants are always
as shy as that?" thought Carmel. "An Italian
would certainly have waited to let me say 'Thank
you!'"

chapter x

A Meeting

After a morning in Wells, to look at the Cathedral[129]
and other beauty spots, the party motored
on to Glastonbury, where again they called
a halt to look at the Abbey and the Museum.
Major Rogers was interested in the objects which
had been excavated from the prehistoric lake
dwellings in the neighborhood, and spent so much
time poring over bronze brooches, horn weaving-combs,
flint scrapers, glass rings, and fragments of
decorated pottery that Sheila lost all patience.

"Is Dad going to spend the whole day in this
moldy old museum?" she asked dramatically.
"I hate anything b. c.! What does it matter to
us how people lived in pile dwellings in the middle
of a lake? To judge from those fancy pictures
of them on the wall there they must have been a
set of uncouth savages. Why can't we drive on
to Dawlish, or some other decent seaside place,
instead of poking about in musty cathedrals and
tiresome museums? I'm fed up!"

"Now, Sheila, don't be naughty!" whispered
her mother. "I'm only too glad to see your[130]
father take an interest in anything. I believe he's
enjoying this tour. If you're tired of the museum,
go out and look at the shops until we're
ready."

"There aren't any worth looking at in a
wretched little country town!" yawned Sheila.
"No, I really don't want to go over the Abbey
either, thanks! I shall sit inside the car and
write, while you do the sight-seeing."

Major Rogers never hurried himself to suit his
daughter's whims, so Sheila was left to sit in the
car, addressing tragic letters and picture post
cards to her friends, and the rest of the party finished
examining the museum, and went to view
the ruins of the famous Abbey.

"If Sheila prefers to stay outside, she can look
after the car," said her father, "and I shall take
Johnson in with us. He's an intelligent fellow,
and I'm sure he appreciates the shows. It's
rather hard on him if he never gets the chance to
see anything."

"I believe he goes sight-seeing on his own account
when he has the opportunity," replied Mrs.
Rogers, "but bring him in, by all means. He
always strikes me as having very refined tastes.
I should think he's trying to educate himself.
But he's so reserved, I never can get anything out
of him."

"He seems fond of books," volunteered Carmel.[131]
"He reads all the time when he's waiting
for us in the car."

Johnson accepted with alacrity the invitation to
view the Abbey, and walked round the ruins apparently
much interested in what he saw, though,
following his usual custom, he spoke seldom, and
then only in brief reply to questions. Once, when
Major and Mrs. Rogers were puzzling over a
Latin inscription, he seemed on the point of making
a remark, but apparently changed his mind,
and walked away.

"He's almost too well trained!" commented
Mrs. Rogers. "Of course a conversational
chauffeur is a nuisance, but I have an impression
that Johnson could be quite interesting if he liked.
Some day I shall try to make him talk."

"Better leave him alone," said Major Rogers.
"I think things do very well as they are."

From Glastonbury they motored through the
beautiful county of Somerset into leafy Devonshire,
taking easy stages so as not to overtire the
invalid, and halting at any place where the guide
book pointed out objects worthy of notice. To
please Carmel, they were making in the direction
of Tivermouth, where they hoped to arrive in
time to meet the Ingletons. They had telegraphed
for rooms at the Hill Crest Hotel, and,
if the place suited Major Rogers, they proposed
to spend a week there.

[132]"There may be perhaps a dance, or a tennis
tournament, or something interesting going on!"
exulted Sheila, who had urged the decision. "At
any rate there'll be somebody to talk to in a decent
hotel—it won't be just all scenery! Let us
spin along, Dad, and get there!"

"Hurry no man's cattle!" replied her father.
"Remember, I am out for a 'rabbit' holiday, and
I like long rests by the roadside. I'm looking
forward to a siesta on the grass somewhere this
afternoon. The scent of the woods does me
good."

So once more the party found a picturesque
spot and stopped for lunch and an hour or two of
quiet under the trees before they took again to
the open road. The spot which they chose this
time was on a slope reaching down to a river.
Above was a thick belt of pines, and below the
water dashed with a pleasant murmuring sound
very soothing on a warm afternoon. It was an
ideal "rabbit playground" for Major Rogers,
and he established himself comfortably with rugs
and cushions after lunch, hoping to be able to
snatch some much-needed sleep. Mrs. Rogers
took her knitting from her hand-bag, and Sheila,
who had a voluminous correspondence, asked
Johnson for her dispatch case and began to write
letters.

As Carmel had nothing very particular to do,[133]
and grew tired of sitting still, she rose presently
and rambled down the wood to the river-side. It
was beautiful to stand and watch the water swirling
by, to gaze at the meadow on the opposite
bank, and to amuse herself by throwing little
sticks into the hurrying current. There was an
old split tree-trunk that overhung the bank, and
it struck her that this would make a most comfortable
and delightful rustic seat. She climbed
on to it quite easily, crawled along, and sat at the
end with her feet swinging over the river. It
was such an idyllic situation that she felt herself
a mixture of a tree nymph and a water nymph,
or—to follow the Major's humor—could almost
imagine that she was taking her holiday in
the shape of a bird. If she would have been content
to remain quietly seated, just enjoying the scenery
all might have been well, but unfortunately
Carmel made the discovery that by exercising
a little energy she could make the stump rock.
The sensation was as pleasant as a swing. Up
and down and up and down she swayed, till the
poor old split tree could bear the strain no longer,
and suddenly, with an awful crash, the part on
which she rested broke off, and precipitated her
into the river. Her cry of terror as she struck
the water echoed through the wood. As she rose
to the surface she managed to clutch hold of some
of the branches and support herself, but she was[134]
in a position of great danger, for the stump was
hardly holding to the edge of the bank, and in
another moment or two would probably be
whirled away by the current.

As she shouted again there was a quick dash
through the undergrowth, and Johnson the chauffeur
shot down through the wood at a speed that
could almost compete with the car's. In a bound
he jumped the bank, and, plunging into the river,
struggled to her help and succeeded in pulling her
back out of the current into the shallow water
among the reeds at the brink.

By this time Major and Mrs. Rogers and Sheila
had all three rushed to the spot, and were able to
extend hands from the bank. Carmel and Johnson
both scrambled out of the river wet through
and covered with mud, the most wretched and
dilapidated objects.

"Oh! she'll take a chill! Whatever are we to
do to get her dry?" cried Mrs. Rogers distractedly,
mopping her young guest's streaming face
with a dainty lace-bordered handkerchief. "Is
there a cottage anywhere near?"

"We'd better get into the car and motor along
till we find one," suggested Major Rogers.
"Johnson, you deserve a medal for this! I never
saw anything so prompt in my life. It was like
a whirlwind!"

"We shall make a horrible mess of the car!"[135]
objected Carmel, trying to wipe some of the mud
from her clothes.

"Never mind; sit on this rug. You're shivering
already, child! Sheila, bring my hand-bag
and your father's cushion. Now, Johnson, just
anywhere! The very first cottage that will take
us in!"

Luckily they were not far from a village with
a fairly comfortable inn, where a sympathetic
landlady provided bedrooms and hot water. As
their luggage was on the car, it was an easy matter
to change, and before very long both Carmel
and her rescuer were in dry garments, and drinking
the hot coffee which Mrs. Rogers insisted
upon as a preventive against catching cold.

"I shall hardly dare to let you out of my sight
again, Carmel!" she said, half laughingly, yet
half in earnest. "I don't want to have to write
to your mother and tell her you're drowned!"

"Nonsense!" declared the Major rather testily.
"It's not a thing she's likely to do twice!
I should think she'd be frightened to go anywhere
near a river again just yet. Are those clothes
dry? Well, never mind, pack them as they are;
we can't wait for them. And the rug, too, just
bundle it up and put it at the bottom of the car.
Johnson can brush it to-morrow. He's a fine
chap. I shall write to the 'Humane Society'[136]
about this business. They ought to give him a
medal."

"I've tried to thank him," said Carmel, "but
directly I begin he dives away and does something
at the car. He doesn't seem to want to be
thanked."

"Oh, that's just Johnson's usual way!"
drawled Sheila. "I expect he's pleased all the
same. You look a little more respectable now,
Carmel. I shouldn't have liked to take you into
the Hill Crest Hotel as you were an hour ago!
I expect after this stoppage we shall arrive too
late to dress comfortably for dinner, unless Johnson
literally tears along, and then I'm scared out
of my wits! What a life! I'd never go motoring
for choice! It's not my idea of a holiday,
I must say."

After all, though Johnson seldom exceeded the
speed limit, the Rogers arrived at Tivermouth in
ample time for Sheila to don a fascinating evening
costume, and to arrange her fair hair in an
elaborate coiffure. The hotel was full of summer
visitors, and in her opinion the large dining-room
with its Moorish decorations, the numerous
daintily-spread little tables, and the fashionable
well-dressed crowd who flocked in at the sounding
of a gong were far more entertaining than a wood
and a picnic meal. But Sheila was not fond of
"rabbit" holidays.

johnson the chauffeur shot down through the wood

"It beats those old-fashioned places we stayed[137]
at in the country towns, doesn't it?" she said to
Carmel, as they sat in the lounge, waiting for Major
and Mrs. Rogers to come down stairs. "By
the by, are your cousins here? I looked in the
visitors' book and couldn't find their names.
What has happened to them?"

"A letter from Dulcie was waiting for me,"
explained Carmel. "They couldn't get rooms
here. They were writing to the 'Eagle's Nest
Hotel,' and hoped to get taken in there. I don't
know whether they've arrived or not. Dulcie
didn't say exactly which day they were starting.
It's just like Dulcie! She generally misses out the
most important point!"

"Well, I suppose they'll look you up when they
do arrive," said Sheila carelessly. "Anyway, I
bless them for giving us some sort of an anchor
down here. I feel I'm going to enjoy myself. I
asked the manageress, and she says there's to be
a dance to-night after dinner."

Carmel, sitting on a cane chair in the palm
lounge next morning, agreed with Sheila that Hill
Crest Hotel was a remarkably comfortable and
luxurious place. A fountain was splashing near
her, foreign birds sang and twittered in the aviary,
and large pots of geraniums made bright patches
of color under the green of the palms. Pleasant
though it was, however, it lacked the charm of the[138]
open air, and, throwing down the magazine she
was reading, Carmel strolled through the hall and
the glass veranda on to the terrace outside. The
hotel certainly had a most beautiful situation. As
its name implied, it stood on the crest of a hill,
surrounded by woods and grounds that stretched
to the beach. A little noisy Devonshire river
raced past it through the glen, and behind it lay
the heathery waste of a great moorland. Below
lay the gleaming waters of the bay, with small
boats bobbing about, and a distant view of the
crags and headlands of a rugged coast line. The
terrace was planted with a border of trailing
pink ivy-leaved geraniums, and the bank that
sloped below was a superb mass of hydrangeas in
full bloom, their delicate shades of blue and pink
looking like the hues of dawn in a clear sky.

Carmel established herself on a seat to enjoy
the prospect, and picking up a gray Persian cat
which was also sunning itself on the terrace,
fondled the pretty creature in her arms. She
was seeing England to the best advantage, for
nowhere could there have been a lovelier scene
than the one which lay before her delighted eyes.
Tivermouth had a reputation as a beauty spot,
and owing to its long distance from the railway
was as yet unspoilt by a too great invasion of tourists.
There were other hotels nestling among the
greenery of the woods, and Carmel wondered if[139]
the Ingletons had arrived at one of them, and at
which of the white houses on the beach the boys
were staying with Miss Mason.

As she was still gazing and speculating there
was a crunch of footsteps on the gravel behind, a
voice called her name, and looking round she saw
Cousin Clare, Lilias, and Dulcie, hurrying towards
her. There was an enthusiastic greeting, followed
by explanations from all three.

"We'd the greatest difficulty to get rooms!"

"The whole place seems full up!"

"They couldn't take us at the 'Eagle's Nest.'"

"We've got in at the 'Victoria,' though!"

"I wish we could have been here with you!"

"Never mind, so long as we're at Tivermouth
at all!"

"Isn't it just too gorgeous for words!"

"We only arrived late last night."

"There's such heaps we want to tell you!"

There was indeed much to be told on both sides.
All three girls had had numerous experiences during
the short time of their parting, and they were
anxious to compare notes. Then Cousin Clare,
Lilias, and Dulcie must be introduced to the Rogers
family, who were all writing letters in a
private sitting-room, but stopped their correspondence
to extend a hearty welcome and to chat
with the new-comers. In a short time the party
rearranged itself, leaving Cousin Clare to talk[140]
with Major and Mrs. Rogers, Lilias and Dulcie
arm-in-arm with Carmel on the terrace, and
Sheila, who had stepped with them out at the
French window, straying away with a young Highland
officer with whom she had danced the night
before.

"Never mind Sheila—she doesn't want us!"
laughed Carmel, squeezing both her cousins' arms,
for she was in the middle. "Oh, it's nice to see
you again! Let's walk along here to the end of
the terrace. I've had all sorts of adventures
since I saw you. I was nearly drowned yesterday
in a river, only Johnson, the chauffeur, fished me
out. You should have seen me all dripping and
covered with mud. And Johnson was just as bad.
We made such a mess of the car with our muddy
clothes. I wonder if he's got it clean yet? By
the by, I left my post cards in the side pocket.
I'd love to show them to you. Shall we go and
get them? The garage is quite close, only just
down this path. Do you mind coming?"

"Go ahead; we'd like to," agreed Dulcie.

So they plunged down the hill-side on a twisting
path, past the bank of hydrangeas and through
a grove of shiny-leaved escallonias to where the
garage, a large building with a corrugated-iron
roof, stood on a natural platform of rock close to
the steep high road that flanked the hotel. The
yard was full of visitors' cars in process of being[141]
cleaned, and chauffeurs were busy with hose, or
polishing fittings.

"I wonder where Johnson has put ours?" said
Carmel, threading her way between an enormous
Daimler and a pretty little two-seater. "Oh,
there it is! That dark-green one in the corner.
Come along! There's just room to pass here
behind this coupé. I expect the post cards are all
right. Johnson would take care of them for me.
I'll ask him to get them. Johnson!"

The chauffeur, who was bending over the car,
too busy with wrench and screwdriver to notice
their approach, straightened himself instantly,
and glanced at the three girls. As his eyes fell
on Lilias and Dulcie, his expression changed to
one of utter consternation and amazement, and
he colored to the roots of his fair hair. They on
their part gazed at him as if they had encountered
a specter.

"Everard!" gasped Dulcie.

"Everard!" faltered Lilias. "It's never
you!"

Here indeed was a drama. Four more astonished
young people it would have been impossible
to conceive. For a moment Everard seemed as
if he were going to bolt, but Carmel, whose quick
mind instantly grasped the situation, motioned
him into the empty motor-shed behind, and, following[142]
with Lilias and Dulcie, partly closed the
door.

"So you're Everard, are you?" she said, looking
at him hard. "Well, to tell you the truth,
I never thought your name was really Johnson! I
told Sheila I was sure you were a gentleman.
Why have you been masquerading like this?
Why don't you go home to the Chase?"

"Oh, do come home, Everard!" echoed Lilias
entreatingly.

The ex-chauffeur shook his head. He was still
almost too covered with confusion to admit of
speech.

"I didn't expect to meet you girls," he said at
last. "The best thing you can do is just to forget
me, and leave me where I am. I shall never
go back to the Chase! That point I've quite decided."

"But we want you there," said Carmel gently.

"You!" Everard looked frankly puzzled.

"Oh, Everard!" burst out Dulcie. "You
don't understand! You ran away and never
waited to hear anything, and we couldn't write to
you, because you sent no address. You thought
Grandfather had left the property to a boy cousin—Leslie!"

"Well, didn't he?"

"Yes, and no! There is no boy cousin. This[143]
is Leslie—only she's called Carmel—the heiress
of Cheverley Chase!"

"You!" exclaimed Everard again, gazing at
Carmel.

"Don't call me 'the heiress,' Dulcie," protested
Carmel. "You know I've said from the
very first that I don't intend to take the Chase
away from you all. It's yours every bit as much
as mine, and more so, because my own real home
is in Sicily, and I hope to go back there some day.
Everard, will you make friends with me on that
understanding, and shake hands? I don't want
to turn anybody out of the Chase."

Carmel held out a slim little hand, and Everard
accepted it delicately, as if it had been that of a
princess.

"I'm still stunned," he remarked. "To think
I should have been driving you all this time, and
not have known you were Leslie Ingleton! I
never chanced to hear your surname. I thought
you were Mrs. Rogers' niece."

"And so I am!" laughed Carmel. "At least
she's my step-aunt, at any rate. Isn't it a regular
Comedy of Errors?"

"Everard," put in Lilias, "why did you turn
chauffeur? We thought you had run away to
sea!"

"I meant to," answered her brother bitterly,
"but when it came to the point of getting employment,[144]
I found the only thing I could earn a
living at was driving a car. I don't know that
I even do that very decently, but at any rate I'm
self-supporting. You'd better leave me where I
am! It's all I'm good for!"

"Not a bit of it!" answered Carmel. "I've
arranged the whole thing in my mind already.
We'll make an exchange. Milner shall take
charge of the car for the Rogers until they can
find another chauffeur, and you shall drive Cousin
Clare and Lilias and Dulcie and me back to the
Chase. Now don't begin to talk, for it's quite
settled, and for once in my life I declare I mean
to have my own way!"

chapter xi

A Secret Society

Carmel seldom asserted herself, but if she set[145]
her heart on an object she generally managed to
persuade people to her way of thinking. This
case proved no exception, and she contrived with
little difficulty to transfer the amazed but willing
Milner temporarily into the service of Major
Rogers, and to instal Everard, minus his chauffeur's
uniform, and looking once more an Ingleton,
to drive the Daimler car back to Cheverley
Chase. Perhaps the talk which Major Rogers
had with his one-time "Johnson" partly worked
the miracle. Exactly what he said was entirely
between themselves, but Everard burst out into
eulogies regarding the Major to Lilias, who was
still his chief confidante.

"One of the best chaps I've ever met! A real
good sort! I shan't forget what he said to me.
I can tell you I've come to look at things in a different
light lately. I'll do anything he suggests.
I'd trust his advice sooner than that of anybody
I know. I'll have a good talk with Bowden, and
see if he agrees. By Jove! I shall be a surprise
packet to him, shan't I?"

[146]Mr. Bowden was not nearly so much astonished
as Everard had anticipated. He took his ward's
return quite as a matter of course, and, lawyer-like,
at once turned to the business side of affairs.
After running away and gaining his own living
for so many months, it was neither possible nor
desirable for Everard to go back to Harrow.
He had broken the last link with his school days,
and must face the problem of his future career.
His grandfather had wished him to go on to
Cambridge, and his guardian also considered it
would be advisable for him to take a university
degree. Meantime his studies were very much in
arrears. He had never worked hard at school,
and would need considerable application to his
books before being ready to begin his terms at
college. By the advice of Major Rogers, Mr.
Bowden decided to engage a tutor to coach him at
the Chase. The house would be perfectly quiet
while the girls and the younger boys were away at
school, and as Everard really seemed to take the
matter seriously, he might be expected to make
good progress.

In the matter of a tutor, Major Rogers was
fortunately able to recommend just the right man.
Mr. Stacey had been studying for orders at Cambridge
when he was called up, and had joined the
army. After serious wounds in France he had
made a slow recovery, and though perfectly able[147]
to act as coach, he would be glad of a period of
quiet in the country before returning to Cambridge.
He was a brilliant scholar and a thoroughly
good all-round fellow, who might be
trusted to make the best possible companion for
Everard in the circumstances. The whole business
was fixed up at once, and he was to arrive
within ten days.

"I'm sorry we shall just miss seeing him!" said
Carmel to Everard, on the evening before the
girls went back to Chilcombe Hall. "But I shall
think of you studying away at your Maths.
You're clever, aren't you, Everard? I don't
know much about English universities, but isn't a
Tripos what you work for at Cambridge? Suppose
you came out Senior Wrangler! We should
be proud of you!"

"No fear of that, I'm afraid, Carmel! I'm a
long way behind and shall have to swat like anything
to get myself up to even ordinary standard.
Burn the midnight oil, and all that kind of weariness
to the flesh!"

"But you'll do it!" (Carmel was looking at
him critically.) "You've got the right shape of
head. Daddy and one of his friends, Signor
Penati, were fearfully keen on phrenology, and
they used to make me notice the shape of people's
heads, and of the Greek and Roman busts in the[148]
museums. It's wonderful how truly they tell
character: the rules hardly ever fail."

"What do you make of my particular phiz,
then, you young Sicilian witch?"

"Great ability if you only persevere; a noble
mind and patriotism—your forehead is just like
the bust of the Emperor Augustus. You'd scorn
bribes, and speak out for the right. I prophesy
that you'll some day get into Parliament, and do
splendid work for your country!"

"Whew! I'm afraid I'll never reach your expectations.
It's a big order you've laid down for
me."

"You could do it, though, if you try. Oh,
don't contradict me, for I know! I haven't
studied heads with Signor Penati for nothing.
First you're going to make a good master of the
Chase, and then you'll help England."

"Not of the Chase, Carmel," said Everard
gently. "We've argued that point out thoroughly,
I think."

"No, no! Let me tell you once again that I
don't want to be mistress here. I only came over
to England to please Mother and Daddy. I'm
going back to Sicily to live, as soon as I can choose
for myself. Directly I'm twenty-one I shall hand
over the Chase to you. You're a far more suitable
owner for it than I am. I feel that strongly.
It ought never to have been left to me. But I'll[149]
put all that right again. Why can't you take it?"
she continued eagerly, as Everard shook his head.
"Surely I can give it to you if I like? Why
not?"

"Why not? You're too young yet to understand.
How could I be such an utter slacker and
sneak as to accept your inheritance? It's unthinkable.
Put that idea out of your little head,
for it can never happen. As for the rest of your
prophecy, it's a long climb to get into Parliament.
I'm nothing like the man you think me, Carmel,
though I'm going to make a spurt now, at any
rate. Don't expect to find me a Senior Wrangler
by Christmas though. Mr. Stacey will probably
tell you I'm an utter dunderhead."

"I shall quarrel with him if he does!" said
Carmel decidedly.

The three girls went back to school on the following
day, half regretful to leave the Chase,
but rather excited at the prospect of meeting their
companions. Now that Carmel had got over her
first stage of homesickness, she liked Chilcombe
and had made many friends there. She intended
to enjoy the autumn term to the best of her ability.
She had brought the materials for pursuing
several pet hobbies, and she settled all her numerous
possessions into her small bedroom with
much satisfaction. She kept the door into the
Blue Grotto open, so that she might talk during[150]
the process. Gowan, also busy unpacking, kept
firing off pieces of information, Bertha flitted in
and out like a butterfly, and girls from other dormitories
paid occasional visits.

Phillida, who was a prime favorite, presently
came in, and installing herself on the end of Dulcie's
bed, so that she could address the occupants
of both bedrooms, began to draw plans.

"I've got an idea!" she announced. "It's a
jolly good one, too, so you needn't smile. It's a
good thing somebody does have ideas in this place,
or you'd all go to sleep! Well, it's this. I really
can't stand the swank of those girls in the Gold
bedroom. They seem to imagine the school belongs
to them. They're not very much older than
we are, indeed Nona is actually six weeks younger
than Lilias, and yet they give themselves the airs
of all creation. Just now Laurette said to me:
'Get out of my way, child!' Child, indeed!
I'm fifteen, and tall for my age! I vote that we
start a secret society, just among our own set, to
resist them."

"Jolly!" agreed Dulcie. "A little wholesome
taking down is just what they need. Laurette's
the limit sometimes. Whom shall we ask
to join?"

"Well, all of you here, and myself, and Noreen,
and Prissie, and Edith. That would make
nine."

[151]"Quite enough too," said Gowan. "A secret
society's much greater fun if it's small. Things
are apt to leak out when you have too many members.
I take it we want to play an occasional
rag on the Gold bedroom? Very well, the fewer
in it the better."

"What shall we call our society?" asked
Dulcie.

"'The Anti-Swelled Headers' would about
suit," suggested Lilias.

"No, no! That sounds as if we were afraid
of getting swelled head ourselves—at least anybody
might take it that way."

"There's a big secret society in Sicily called
'The Mafia,'" vouchsafed Carmel.

"Then let us call ours 'The Chilcombe Mafia.'
No one will understand what we mean, even if
they get hold of the name. Indeed I shouldn't
mind casually mentioning it now and then, just to
puzzle them. When things get bad, 'The Mafia'
will take them up."

"Strike secretly and suddenly!" agreed Dulcie
with a chuckle.

"Let's sign our names at once!" declared
Phillida enthusiastically.

At Carmel's suggestion, however, they made
rather more of a ceremony of the initiation of
their new order. The prospective members retired
into the wood above the garden, and in strict[152]
privacy took an oath of secrecy and service.
Then, with Edith's fountain pen filled for the occasion
with red ink, they inscribed their autographs
on a piece of paper, rolled it up, placed it
in a bottle, then solemnly dug a hole, and buried
the said bottle under a tree.

"It will be here for a testimony against any
girl who breaks her oath!" declared Phillida.
"Carmel says the real Mafia sign their names in
blood, but I think that's horrid, and red ink will
do quite as well. Just as I was coming out now,
Laurette said to me; 'Oh, don't go running
away, because I want one of you younger ones to
do something for me presently.' She said it with
the air of a duchess!"

"Cheek!" agreed the others. "It's high time
we made up a society against her!"

Many and various were the offences that were
laid to Laurette's score. Lilias had a private
grievance, because she fancied that Laurette had
never been so civil to herself and Dulcie since it
was known that their brother was not to inherit
the Chase. Gowan, who liked plain speaking,
accused Laurette of telling "fiblets"; Bertha had
had a squabble over the bathroom, and Prissie a
wrestle for the piano.

"Laurette always reminds me of that rhyme
that the undergrads made up about the Master
of Balliol," said Edith.

[153]

"'Here come I, my name is Jowett,

All there is to know, I know it;

I'm the head of this here College,

What I don't know isn't knowledge!'

That's Laurette's attitude exactly. She's so superior
to everybody!"

"We'll take her down, don't worry yourself!"
smiled Dulcie. "We must just wait for a good
opportunity, and then——"

"The secret hand will smite!" laughed Carmel,
who enjoyed the fun as much as anybody.

Laurette's aggravatingly superior pose was especially
apparent in her attitude towards the mistresses.
She monopolized Miss Herbert, treated
her almost like a friend, wrote notes to her, left
flowers in her bedroom, and walked arm-in-arm
with her in the garden. Perhaps the mistress was
lonely, possibly she was flattered by receiving so
much attention, at any rate she allowed Laurette
to be on terms of great intimacy, and gave her a far
larger share of her confidence than was at all wise.
Laurette, after a hot affection lasting three weeks,
got tired of Miss Herbert, and suddenly cooled
off. Gowan and Carmel, going into the sitting-room
one day, found her discussing her former
idol with a group of her chums.

"Do you call her pretty? Well, now, I
don't!" she was saying emphatically. "She may
have been pretty once, but now she's getting decidedly[154]
passée. I can't say I admire faded sentimental
people!"

"Sentimental?" said Truie. "I shouldn't call
her sentimental at all. She's only too horribly
practical, in my opinion!"

"You don't know her as I do! My dear!
The things she's told me! The love affairs she's
been through! I had the whole history of them.
And she used to blush, and look most romantic.
It was all I could do not to burst out laughing.
You'd scream if I were to tell you! First there
was a clergyman——"

"Here, stop!" interrupted Gowan, breaking
abruptly into the conversation, and turning two
blazing blue eyes on Laurette. "Anything Miss
Herbert may have told you was certainly in confidence,
and to go and blab it over the school
seems to me the meanest, sneakiest trick I've ever
heard of! You're an absolute blighter, Laurette!"

"Well, I'm sure! What business is it of
yours, Gowan Barbour, or of Carmel Ingleton's
either? Cheek!"

"It is our business!" flared Carmel, as indignant
as Gowan. "It's horribly mean to make
friends with any one, and hear all her secrets,
and then go and make fun of them!"

"It's playing it low!" added Gowan, determined
to speak her mind for once. "And I hope[155]
somebody will make fun of you some day just to
serve you right! Some day you'll be faded and
passée, and people will giggle and say you haven't
'got off' in spite of all your efforts, and they wonder
how old you really are, and they remember
when you came out, and you can't be a chicken,
and they don't like to see 'mutton dressed like
lamb,' and all the rest of the kind pleasant things
that people of your type find to say. I know!
Well, I shan't be in the least sorry for you! It
will be a judgment!"

Laurette had made a desperate attempt to interrupt
Gowan's flow of words, but she might as
well have tried to stop the brook. When Gowan
began, she never even paused for breath. Her
wrath was like a whirlwind. Laurette's three
chums had turned away as if rather ashamed,
and began hastily to get out books and writing-materials.
They pretended not to notice when
Laurette looked at them for support.

"Yes, you needn't think Truie and Hester and
Muriel will back you up!" continued Gowan.
"Unless they're as mean as you are. There!
I've finished now, so you needn't butt in! You
know exactly what I think of you. Come along,
Carmel!"

The two immediate results of this episode were
a bitter feud between Laurette and Gowan, and a
sympathetic interest in Miss Herbert by all the[156]
members of the Mafia. They felt that her confidence
had been betrayed, and they would have
liked somehow to make it up to her. They
brought so many floral offerings to her bedroom
that her vases were almost inconveniently
crowded.

Carmel, hearing that she was collecting post
cards, sent home for some special ones of Sicily;
Dulcie tendered chocolates; Lilias crocheted her
a pincushion cover, and Bertha painted her a hair-tidy.
She accepted their little kindnesses with
mild astonishment, but not a hint of the real reason
of their sudden advances flashed across her
mind.

"We mustn't let her suspect!" said Dulcie.

"Rather not!" agreed Carmel.

"Not for worlds!" said Gowan emphatically.

chapter xii

White Magic

October passed by with flaming crimson and[157]
gold on the trees, and orange and mauve toadstools
among the moss of the woods, and squirrels
scampering up the Scotch pines at the top of
the garden, laying by their winter store of nuts;
and flocks of migrating birds twittering in the
fields, and hosts of glittering red hips and haws
in the hedges, and shrouds of fairy gossamer over
the blackberry bushes. It was Carmel's first autumn
in England, and, though her artistic temperament
revelled in the beauty of the tints, the
falling leaves filled her with consternation.

"It is so sad to see them all come down," she
declared. "Why the trees will soon be quite
bare! Nothing but branches left!"

"What else do you expect?" asked Gowan.
"They won't keep green all the winter."

"I suppose not. But in Sicily we have so many
evergreens and shrubs that flower all the winter.
The oranges and lemons begin to get ripe soon
after Christmas, and we have agaves and prickly
pears everywhere. I can't imagine a landscape
without any leaves!"

[158]"Wait till you see the snow! It's prime
then!"

"There's generally snow on Etna, but I haven't
been up so high. It doesn't fall where we live."

"Girl alive! Have you never made a snowball?"

"Never."

"Then it's a treat in store for you. I sincerely
hope we shall have a hard winter."

"We ought to, by the number of berries in the
hedges," put in Bertha. "It's an old saying that
they foretell frost.

"'Bushes red with hip and haw,

Weeks of frost without a thaw.'

I don't know whether it always comes true,
though."

"I'm a believer in superstitions," declared Gowan.
"Scotch people generally are, I think.
My great-grandmother used to have second sight.
By the by; it's Hallowe'en on Friday! I vote we
rummage up all the old charms we can, and try
them. It would be ever such fun."

"Topping! Only let us keep it to the Mafia,
and not let the others know."

"Rather! We don't want Laurette and Co.
butting in."

The remaining members of the Mafia, when
consulted, received the idea with enthusiasm.[159]
There is a vein of superstition at the bottom of
the most practical among us, and all of them were
well accustomed to practise such rites as throwing
spilt salt over the left shoulder, curtseying to the
new moon, and turning their money when they
heard the cuckoo.

"Not, of course, that it always follows," said
Prissie. "On Easter holidays a bird used to
come and tap constantly at our drawing-room
window at home. It was always doing it. Of
course that means 'a death in the family,' but we
all kept absolutely hearty and well. Not even a
third cousin once removed has died, and it's more
than two years ago. Mother says it was probably
catching insects on the glass. She laughs at
omens!"

"I always double my thumb inside my fist if I
walk under a ladder," volunteered Noreen.

"Well, it is unlucky to go under a ladder,"
declared Phillida. "You may get a pot of paint
dropped on your head! I saw that happen once
to a poor lady: it simply turned upside down on
her, and deluged her hat and face and everything
with dark green paint. She had to go into a
shop to be wiped. It must have been awful for
her, and for her clothes as well. I've never forgotten
it."

"What could we do on Hallowe'en?" asked
Edith.

[160]"Well, we must try to think it out, and make
some plans."

From the recesses of their memories the girls
raked up every superstition of which they had ever
heard. These had to be divided into the possible
and the impossible. There are limits of liberty
in a girls' school, and it was manifestly infeasible,
as well as very chilly, to attempt to stray out alone
at the stroke of twelve, robed merely in a nightgown,
and fetch three pails of water to place by
one's bedside. Gowan's north country recipe for
divination was equally impracticable—to go out
at midnight, and "dip your smock in a south-running
spring where the lairds' lands meet," then
hang it to dry before the fire. They discussed it
quite seriously, however, in all its various aspects.

"To begin with, what exactly is a smock?"
asked Carmel.

Everybody had a hazy notion, but nobody was
quite sure about it.

"Usen't farm laborers to wear them once?"
suggested Lilias.

"But Shakespeare says,

"'When shepherds pipe on oaten straws,

And merry larks are ploughmen's clocks,

When ring the woods with rooks and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,'"

objected Prissie.

[161]"Was it an upper or an under garment?"
questioned Noreen.

"I'm sure I don't know. I don't fancy we
any of us possess 'smocks'!"

"Then we certainly can't go and soak them in
a spring!"

"And there is no 'laird' here, and even if you
count an ordinary owner of property as a 'laird,'
you don't know where the boundaries are!"

"No, that floors us completely!"

An expedition to the cellar for apples would be
an equally hopeless quest, for all the harvest of
the orchard had been stored in the loft, and was
under lock and key. Some minor experiments,
however, might be tried with apple skins, so they
determined to pocket their next dessert, and keep
it till the magic hour of divination arrived. Hot
chestnuts would be a distinct possibility, and a
little coaxing at head-quarters would doubtless result
in Jones the gardener bringing a bag full for
them from Glazebrook.

They felt quite excited when the fateful day
arrived. Miss Walters had made no objection to
an order for chestnuts, and had even allowed a
modicum of toffee to be added to the list. She
did not refer to the subject of Hallowe'en, for she
had some years ago suppressed the custom of bobbing
for apples, finding that the girls invariably[162]
got their hair wet, and had colds in their heads
in consequence.

The members of the Mafia, well stocked therefore
with the apples and chestnuts necessary for
divination, remained in their schoolroom after
evening preparation, so as to have a gay time all
to themselves. To make matters more thrillsome
they turned out the light, and sat in the
flickering glow of the fire. Gowan, having the
largest acquaintance with the occult, not to speak
of having possessed a great-grandmother endowed
with second sight, was universally acknowledged
priestess of the ceremonies.

"Shall we begin with apples or chestnuts?" she
asked seriously.

As some said one thing and some another, she
held a specimen of each behind her back, and
commanded Carmel to choose right hand or left.
The lot fell upon chestnuts, and these were placed
neatly in pairs along the bars of the grate.

"You name them after yourself and your
sweetheart," explained Gowan. "If he pops
first, he'll ask you to marry him."

"And suppose the other pops first?" asked
Carmel.

"Then you won't marry him!"

"Doesn't it mean that it may be Leap Year,
and the girl will 'pop the question'?" asked
Dulcie, still giggling.

[163]"No, it doesn't."

"Suppose they neither of them pop?" said
Prissie.

"It's a sign that neither cares, but it's not very
likely to happen—they nearly always pop."

"I pricked mine with my penknife, though."

"The more goose you! Take them back and
try two fresh ones."

It is rather a delicate and finger-scorching process
to balance chestnuts on the bars, and as a matter
of fact Prissie's tumbled into the fire, and
could not be rescued. The party was obliged to
watch them burn. They helped her to place another
in position, then sat round, keeping careful
eyes on their particular representatives. It was
forbidden to reveal names, so each kept the identity
of her favored swain locked in her breast.
It seemed a long time before those chestnuts were
ready! Love's delays are notoriously hard to
bear. Never were omens watched so anxiously.
Slap! Bang! Pop! at last came from Carmel's
particular corner, and fragments flew about
indiscriminately on to hearth and fire.

"It's 'him'!" cried Gowan ungrammatically.
"He's done it most thoroughly too! Carmel,
you'll be married the first of any of us! You'll
ask us to the wedding, won't you?"

At that moment a chorus of pops came from
the grate, causing much rejoicing or dismay from[164]
the various owners of the chestnuts, according to
the fate meted out to them by the omens. On the
whole Cupid was kind, though Lilias and Gowan
were left in the lurch.

"I don't care!" said Gowan sturdily. "I've
another in my mind, and perhaps I shall get him
in the apple-peels."

"And if you don't?"

"I'll meet somebody else later on."

Having eaten more or less charred pieces of
chestnut, the girls produced their apples, and once
more set to work to try magic. The apple had to
be peeled entirely in one long piece, which must
then be slung backwards over the left shoulder on
to the floor, where it would form the initial of the
future lover. It was a matter for skilful manipulation
of penknives, not at all easy to manage, so
difficult in fact, that Noreen and Dulcie each made
a slip, and chopped their precious pieces of peel
in the middle, thus rendering them useless for purposes
of divination. Lilias, who made the first
essay, was completely puzzled by the result, which
did not resemble any known letter in the alphabet,
though Gowan, anxious to interpret the oracles,
construed it into a W. Edith's long thin piece of
peel made a plain C, a fact which seemed to cause
her much satisfaction, though she would betray
no names. Prissie broke her luck in half in the[165]
very act of flinging it, but insisted that the two
separate portions each formed an O.

It was Carmel's turn next, and her rather
broad piece of peel twisted itself into a most palpable
E. She looked at it for a moment as if
rather taken aback, then her face cleared.

"There are quite a number of names that begin
with E," she remarked enigmatically.

Now it was all very well to sit in the sanctuary
of their schoolroom trying such mild magic as
divination through chestnuts and apple skins.
Gowan's northern blood yearned after more subtle
witchcraft.

"I shan't be content till I've pulled a cabbage
stalk!" she declared. "I don't see why we need
wait till midnight! Hallowe'en is Hallowe'en as
soon as it's dark, I should think. Who's game to
fly up the kitchen-garden?"

"What? Now?"

"Why not? We should only be gone a few
minutes and Miss Hardy would never find out."

"It really would be a frolicsome joke!"

"There's a moon, too!"

"I vote we risk it!"

"Come along!"

Nine giggling girls therefore stole cautiously
downstairs, a little delayed by Prissie, who, with a
most unusual concern for her health, insisted on[166]
fetching a wrap. They opened the side door,
and peeped out into the night. It was quite fine,
with a clear full moon, and clouds drifting high
in the sky. The vegetable garden was so near
that the ceremony could be very quickly performed.
It was, of course, breaking rules to
leave the house after dark, but not one of them
could resist the temptation, so out they sped to
the cabbage patch.

Now when Prissie ran to her bedroom, ostensibly
to get a wrap, she had really gone with
quite other intentions. She had certainly put on
a long dark coat and a soft felt hat, but the whole
gist of the matter lay in something that she slipped
into her pocket. It was a black mustache that
she had brought to school for use in theatricals,
and lay handy in her top drawer. She had hastily
smeared the under side of it with soap, so that
it would adhere to her lip, and once out in the
garden, she fell behind the others and fixed it in
position. Then she made a détour behind some
bushes, so as to conceal herself from the party.

Presently, under the bright moon and scudding
clouds, eight much-thrilled girls were hurriedly
pulling away at cabbage stalks, and estimating, by
the amount of earth that came up with them,
the wealth of their future husbands. The general
surroundings and the associations of the evening
were sufficient to send shivers down their[167]
spines. Gowan, looking up suddenly, saw standing
among the bushes a dark figure with a heavy
black mustache, and she caught her breath with a
gasp, and clutched at Carmel's arm. For an instant
eight horrified faces stared at the apparition,
then Dulcie made a dive in its direction, and
dragged forth Prissie.

"You wretch!"

"What a mean trick to play!"

"You didn't take me in!"

"It was very clever, though!"

"You really looked just like a spook!"

"Take it off now!"

"No, no!" said Prissie. "Leave me alone!
I haven't finished. Hush! I believe somebody
else is coming to try the ordeal. Slip behind that
cucumber-frame and hide, and let us see who it is.
Quick! You'll be caught!"

The girls made a swift, but silent, dash for the
shadow of the cucumber-frame, and concealed
themselves only just in time. They were barely
hidden when footsteps resounded on the gravel,
and a figure advanced from the direction of the
house. It came alone, and it carried something
in its hand. In the clear beams of the moonlight,
the Mafia had no difficulty in recognizing
Laurette, and could see that what she bore was
her bedroom mirror. They chuckled inwardly.
Most evidently she had sallied forth to try the[168]
white magic of Hallowe'en, and to make the spell
work more securely had come alone to consult
the cabbage oracle.

First she placed her mirror on the ground,
and tilted its swing glass to a convenient angle
at which to catch reflections. Then she pulled
hard at a stalk, looked with apparent satisfaction
at the decidedly thick lumps of earth that adhered
(which, if the magic were to be trusted, must
represent a considerable fortune); then, clasping
her cabbage in her hand, knelt down in front of
the looking-glass, and began to mutter something
to herself in a low voice. Her back was towards
the cucumber-frame and the bushes, and her eyes
were fixed on her mirror.

Prissie, looking on, realized that it was the
chance of a lifetime. She stole on tiptoe from
her retreat, and peeped over Laurette's shoulder
so that her reflection should be displayed in the
glass. Laurette, seeing suddenly a most unexpected
vision of a dark mustache, literally yelled
with fright, sprang up, and turned round to face
her "spook," then with a further blood-curdling
scream, dashed down the garden towards the
house. The Mafia, rising from the shadow of
the cucumber-frame, laughed long, though with
caution.

"What an absolutely topping joke!" whispered
Dulcie.

she peeped over laurette's shoulder

"And on Laurette, of all people in this wide[169]
world!" rejoiced Bertha.

"Congrats., Prissie!"

"You did play up no end!"

"I flatter myself I made her squeal and run!"
smirked Prissie. "It just serves her right! I
was longing for a chance to get even with her!"

"What about the looking-glass?" asked Carmel.
"Won't some of them be coming out to
fetch it?"

"Yes, of course they will! We must take it
in at once. Let us scoot round the other way,
and go in by the back door before Laurette and
Co. catch us!"

Prissie seized the mirror, and the nine girls fled
by another path to the door near the kitchen,
where by great good luck they avoided meeting
any of the servants, and were able to bolt upstairs
unseen. The Gold bedroom was empty—no
doubt its occupants were shivering at the side
door—so they were able to restore the looking-glass
to its place on the dressing-table as a surprise
for Laurette when she returned. Whether she
suspected them or not, it was impossible to tell,
for she kept her own counsel, and, though next
day they referred casually to Hallowe'en observances,
she only glanced at them with half-closed
eyelids, and remarked that she was quite above
such silly superstitions.

[170]"Which is more than a fiblet, and about the
biggest whopper that Miss Laurette Aitken has
ever told in her life!" declared Prissie, still chuckling
gleefully at the remembrance of the startled
figure fleeing down the garden.

chapter xiii

The Money-makers

"All Saints'" brought a brief spell of golden[171]
weather, a snatch of Indian summer, as if Persephone,
loth to go down into the Underworld, had
managed to steal a few days' extra leave from
Pluto, and had remained to scatter some last
flowers on earth before her long banishment from
the sunshine. Under the sheltered brick wall in
the kitchen-garden Czar violets were blooming,
sweet and fragrant as those of spring; the rose
trees had burst out into a second crop, and the
chrysanthemums were such a special show that
Miss Walters almost shook hands with Jones the
gardener over them. Little wild flowers blossomed
on in quiet nooks at the edge of the shrubbery,
and butterflies, brought out by the bright
days, made a last flutter in the sunshine. The
leaves, which Carmel had grieved so much to see
fall, lay crisp and golden on the ground, but the
bare boughs of the trees, somewhat to her surprise,
held a beauty of form and tint quite their
own.

[172]"They are all sorts of lovely soft delicate
colors," she remarked. "Quite different from
trees in Sicily. I think it must be the damp in
the air here that does it; everything seems seen
through a blue haze—a kind of fairy glamour
that makes them different from what they are!"

"Wait till you see them on a sousing wet December
morning!" declared Gowan. "You
won't find much romance about them then!"

"But in the meantime we'll enjoy them!" said
Miss Walters, who happened to overhear.
"Who votes for a walk this afternoon? Anybody
who prefers to stop at home and write
French translation may do so!"

The girls grinned. Miss Walters did not often
give them an unexpected holiday, so such treats
were appreciated when they came. Twenty-one
enthusiasts donned strong boots, jerseys, and
tam-o'-shanters, and started forth for a ramble
on the hill-side. They had climbed through the
wood, and were walking along the upper road
that led to the hamlet of Five Stone Bridge, when
they came face to face with a very curious little
cavalcade. Two large soap boxes, knocked together,
had been placed on old perambulator
wheels, and in this roughly fashioned chariot, on a
bundle of straw and an old shawl, reclined a little,
thin, white-faced girl. One sturdy boy of ten was
pushing the queer conveyance, while a younger[173]
pulled it by a piece of rope, and the small occupant,
her lap full of flowers, smiled as proudly as
a queen on coronation day. Against the background
of green hedgerow and red village roofs,
the happy children made a charming picture; they
had not noticed the approach of the school, and
were laughing together in absolute unconsciousness.
The sight of them at that particular moment
was one of those brief glimpses into the
heart of other folks' lives that only come to us on
chance occasions, when by some accident we peep
over the wall of human reserve into the inner
circle of thought and feeling. Almost with one
accord the girls stopped and smiled.

"I wish I'd brought my camera!" murmured
Dulcie.

"They're too sweet for words!" agreed
Prissie.

Miss Walters spoke to the children, asked their
names, and ascertained that the little girl had been
ill for a long time, and could not walk. They
were shy, however, and all the spontaneous gladness
that had made the first snapshot view of
them so charming faded away in the presence of
strangers. They accepted some pieces of chocolate,
and remained by the hedge bank staring with
solemn eyes as the line of the school filed away.
The chance meeting was no doubt an event on
both sides: the children would tell their mother[174]
about the ladies who had spoken to them, and the
girls, on their part, could not forget the pretty
episode. They urged Miss Walters to make
some inquiries about the family, and found that
little Phyllis was suffering from hip disease, and
had been for a short time in the local hospital.
Then an idea sprang up amongst the girls. It
was impossible to say quite where it originated,
for at least five girls claimed the honor of it,
but it was neither more nor less than that Chilcombe
School should raise a subscription and buy
an adequate carriage for the small invalid.

"That terrible box must shake her to pieces,
poor kid!"

"It had no springs!"

"She looked so sweet!"

"But as white as a daisy!"

"Wouldn't she be proud of a real, proper carriage?"

"Can't we write off and order one at once?"

"What would it cost?"

"Let's get up a concert or something for it."

"Oh, yes! That would be ever such sport!"

Miss Walters, on being appealed to, was cautious—caution
was one of her strong characteristics—and
would not commit herself to any reply
until she had consulted the doctor who attended
the child, the clergyman of the parish, and the
local schoolmaster. Armed with this accumulated[175]
information, she visited the mother, then gave a
report of her interview.

"They're not well off, but we mustn't on any
account pauperize them," was her verdict. "Dr.
Cranley says an invalid carriage would be a great
boon to the child, but suggests that the parents
should pay half the expense. They would value
it far more if they did so, than if it were entirely
a gift. He knows of a second-hand wicker carriage
that could be had cheap. It belongs to
another patient of his, and he saw it at their house
only the other day. If you girls can manage to
raise about £2, 10s., the parents would do the rest.
He was mentioning the subject of a carriage to
them a short time ago, and they said they could
afford something, but not the full price. He
thinks this would settle the matter to everybody's
satisfaction."

Dr. Cranley's proposal suited the girls, for
£2, 10s. was a sum that seemed quite feasible to
collect among themselves. They determined,
however, to get as much fun out of the business
as possible.

"Don't let's have a horrid subscription list!"
urged Lilias. "It's so unutterably dull just to
put down your name for half a crown. I hoped
we were going to give a concert."

"What I vote," said Gowan, "is that each
bedroom should have a show of its own, ask the[176]
others to come as audience, charge admission,
and wangle the cash that way."

"There'd be some sport in that!" agreed
Lilias.

"It's great!" declared Dulcie.

"You bet it will catch on!" purred Prissie.

Gowan's scheme undoubtedly caught on. It
was so attractive that there was no resisting it.
Even the occupants of the Gold bedroom, who as
a rule were not too ready to receive suggestions
from the Blue Grotto, could not find a single
fault, and plumped solidly for a dramatic performance.
Each dormitory was to give any entertainment
it chose, and while the Brown room
decided on Nigger Minstrels, and the Green room
on a general variety program, the Blue, Gold and
Rose were keen on acting. Miss Walters, who,
of course, had to be consulted, not only gave a
smiling permission, but seemed on the very verge
of suggesting a personal attendance, then, noticing
the look of polite agony which swept over the
faces of the deputation, kindly backed out from
such an evidently embarrassing proposal, and declared
that she and the mistresses would be too
busy to come, and must leave the girls to manage
by themselves.

"Thank goodness!" exclaimed Gowan, when
they were safely out of earshot of the study door.
"I never dreamt of such an awful thing as Miss[177]
Walters offering to turn up! Why, we couldn't
have had any fun at all!"

"We'd have had to act Shakespeare, or something
stilted out of a book!" shuddered Edith.

"I should simply shut up if any of the mistresses
were looking on," protested Dulcie.

"And I should shut down, and crawl under a
bed, I think," laughed Noreen. "I say, I hope
Miss Walters wasn't offended. We certainly
looked very blank when she began asking us the
price of 'stalls.' I suppose it wasn't exactly
what you'd call polite!"

"Perhaps it wasn't, but it can't be helped,"
groaned Gowan. "It would wreck everything to
have an audience of mistresses. I feel we've
escaped a great danger. We must warn the
others not to be too encouraging, or give the
mistresses any loophole of an excuse to butt in.
This particular show is to be private and confidential."

It was decided to hold each performance on a
separate day, during the evening recreation time.

"Matinées are no good!" decreed Prissie.
"Everybody feels perfectly cold in the afternoon.
It's impossible to get up any proper enthusiasm
until the lamps are lighted."

"I feel a perfect stick at 4 p. m.," admitted
Carmel.

"What will you feel later on?"

[178]"A sort of combination of Mary Pickford and
Charlie Chaplin thrown together, I hope!"
twinkled Carmel. "It depends whether you put
me on a comic turn or a romantic scene."

"I vote we have a little bit of both," said
Gowan. "We'll harrow their feelings first, and
end in comedy."

The five bedrooms drew lots for the order of
their performances, and the honor of "first
night" fell to the Blue Grotto. Its occupants
(including Carmel, whose dressing-room was considered
an annex) held a rejoicing committee to
plan out their play. Squatting on Gowan's bed,
they each contributed portions of the plot.

"Shall we write it out and learn our parts?"
asked Lilias.

"Certainly not. It would quite spoil it if you
were just reeling off speeches by heart, with one
ear open to the prompter. I know you! I shall
never forget Lilias when we did 'The Vanity
Bag.' She said her bits as if she were repeating
a lesson, and Bertha——"

"Are we to say anything we like, then?" interrupted
Carmel, for Gowan's reminiscences were
becoming rather too personal for purposes of harmony.

"We'll map the whole thing out beforehand,
of course, but you must just say what comes into
your head at the moment. It will be ever so much[179]
fresher and funnier. All you've got to do is to
get into the right spirit and play up!"

"All serene! As long as no mistresses are sitting
looking on, I don't mind."

The Blue Grotto, being the first on the list of
performances, was determined to do the thing in
style. Bertha and Carmel between them evolved
a poster. It was painted in sepia on the back of
one of Dulcie's school drawings, sacrificed for the
purpose. It represented the profile of a rather
pert looking young person with a tip-tilted nose
and an eye several sizes larger than was consistent
with the usual anatomy of the human
countenance. Lower down, in somewhat shaky
lettering, was set forth the following announcement:

[180]

This they placed temporarily in the passage,[181]
but when the girls had giggled over it sufficiently
they removed it, for fear its attractions might
tempt some of the mistresses into asking permission
to attend, a fatality which must at all costs
be avoided.

The performers spent a hectic day making arrangements.
The time allowed in their dormitory
was necessarily limited, so preparations were
a scramble. The four beds were moved and
placed as seats, and one corner of the room was reserved
as the stage. Carmel's dressing-room
made an excellent "green room," and gave the
Blue Grotto a substantial theatrical lift over other
dormitories.

Ten minutes before the hour, five distracted
actresses were struggling to complete their impromptu
toilets.

"I'm so rocky, I know I shan't be able to say
anything at all!" fluttered Dulcie.

"Nonsense! Pull yourself together, child!"
urged Gowan. "Get some stiffening into you,
can't you?"

"I'm going to have umpteen dozen fits!"

"You've got to reckon with me if you spoil the
play, so there! Don't be a silly cockchafer!"

"Are we downhearted?" twittered Bertha.

"No!" answered a stalwart chorus of three,
hauling up Dulcie, who was sitting on a chair
shivering in the agonies of an acute attack of stage
fright.

By this time the audience was trooping in, and
seating itself upon the beds, and by frantic clapping
clamored for the entertainment to begin.
Gowan opened the show, and took the stage in
the character of Miss Monica Morton, an elderly
spinster. Her make-up was very good, considering
the limited resources of the company. Some
cotton wool did service for white hair neatly arranged
under a boudoir cap; her dress (borrowed
from Noreen, who was a head taller than Gowan)
fell to her ankles; she wore spectacles, and[182]
wrinkles had been carefully painted across her
forehead. Bertha, a forward chit of a maidservant
(servants on the stage invariably assume a
cheekiness of manner that would never be tolerated
by any employer in private life), bounced in
and handed her a letter, and stood making grimaces
to the audience while her mistress—very
foolishly—read its contents aloud. It ran thus:

Miss Morton, on grasping the drift of this
epistle, exhibited symptoms of distress. She flung
out her arms in a dramatic attitude, and confided
to the audience her disinclination to take over
the unwelcome task of becoming duenna to her
niece. There was no other course open to her,[183]
apparently; the idea of sending the girl home by
the next train, or of hastily packing her own box
and departing somewhere on urgent business did
not seem to occur to her. She grumbled, but
accepted the responsibility, and Jemima, the pert
maidservant, made faces behind her back, till summoned
by a violent knocking, when she flew to
the door and admitted Dorothea, with bag and
baggage.

Lilias, as the fashionable niece, was "got up
regardless." Her hair was done in a Grecian
knot, a veil was twisted round her picture hat, and
she sailed into the room with the assurance of a
Society beauty.

Aunt Monica, suppressing the letter of warning,
gave the customary greetings, then—with
the imprudence characteristic of a stage aunt—announced
her intention of going out to do shopping
while her niece unpacked her possessions.

Instead of doing anything so sensible as to unpack,
Dorothea sank into a chair, and in an attitude
of great languor and despair confided her
love affairs to the sympathetic and interested servant,
who swore fealty and offered all possible assistance.
Her kind intentions were put at once to
the test, for immediately another violent knocking
was heard, she flung open the door, and after a
whispered colloquy announced "Mr. Montague
Ponsonby."

[184]The entrance of Carmel, as hero of the drama,
created quite a sensation. Materials for masculine
attire were scanty at Chilcombe Hall, and, as
the girls felt rather mean for not having invited
the mistresses to their performance, they had
not dared to ask for the loan of any theatrical
properties, and had been obliged to concoct costumes
from anything that came to hand. Carmel
had put her feet through the sleeves of her brown
knitted jumper, and drawn it up so that the cuffs
fitted just below her knees, and made a really
striking resemblance to a pair of gentleman's
sporting breeches. A coat covered any deficiencies
at the waist, a paper collar and a scarlet
tie encircled her throat, india-rubber waders did
service for top-boots, her hair was tucked under a
felt hat (with the trimming wrenched off), and
last, but not least, her lip was adorned with the
black mustache which Prissie had used on Hallowe'en.
She looked such a magnificent and
sporting object, that it was no wonder the fashionable
Dorothea fell into her arms.

It is perhaps unusual for a gentleman to conduct
his love-making with his hat on, but the audience
was not "viper-critical" and allowed some
latitude to Mr. Montague Ponsonby. They admired
the ardor with which he pressed his suit,
the fervor of his protestations of fidelity, the
dramatic roll of his dark eyes, and the tender tone[185]
of his voice. His entrance was considered a very
brisk bit of acting, and when he paused for breath,
in a graceful stage attitude, sixteen pairs of hands
gave a hearty clap.

The lovers, possibly a little sated with the
ecstacies of their affection, turned to the sordid
details of life, and sitting hand in hand upon the
sofa (improvised out of four bedroom chairs and
an eiderdown) planned an immediate elopement.
They had decided to hire a car and make for
Scotland, and were discussing which hotel to stay
at, and what they should order for dinner, when
the inevitable happened. The pert maidservant
rushed in, and in a voice squeaky with tragedy,
warned them of the immediate approach of Miss
Monica Morton.

Of course, they ought to have expected it. Nobody
except two utter idiots would have sat philandering
upon the sofa in what might be termed
"the lion's den," knowing that "the lion" might
at any moment walk in with her shopping-basket
and catch them. The surprise and horror depicted
on their countenances would have commanded
a good salary at a cinema studio. Mr.
Montague Ponsonby was for bluffing it, but
Dorothea's astute female brains seized a readier
way out of the situation. She laid her lover flat
upon the sofa, and covered him hastily with her
traveling rug, then, opening her suitcase, flung[186]
its contents on the floor, and knelt down in the
midst of a muddle of shoes, nightdresses, and
other paraphernalia.

Aunt Monica exhibited a natural amazement at
finding her niece conducting her unpacking in the
sitting-room, instead of upstairs, but accepted her
explanations with wonderful indulgence. She professed
herself tired with shopping, and moved towards
the sofa to rest.

Dorothea, with sudden solicitude, sprang up to
offer her a chair, and made every human effort to
lead her away from the couch. She was a persistent,
not to say obstinate, old lady, however,
and she meant to have her own way in her own
house. Waving her niece aside, and proclaiming
her weariness, she sank down heavily upon the
sofa. The result was tragic, for a stifled groan
resounded through the room, and the top-boots
of the luckless Montague Ponsonby kicked wildly
in the air. Miss Morton, naturally alarmed, and
instantly jumping to the conclusion that he was a
burglar, screamed loudly for assistance, and a
passing policeman hastened to her call.

It is wonderful how efficient and handy the
police always are on the stage. They are invariably
at the right place at the right moment, and
always step in just in time to stop a murder, prevent
an explosion, or rescue the heroine. Dulcie,
who in a long blue coat, with a paper helmet and[187]
a strap under her chin, represented the majesty of
the law, hauled the squirming Montague from the
couch, and secured his wrists tightly with a piece
of clothes line supplied by the pert servant, who
ought to have been ashamed of herself for going
back on her promise to help the lovers, but probably
felt a deeper obligation to the policeman,
who was, no doubt, her sweetheart, which accounted
for his very convenient presence on the
doorstep.

"I arrest you in the King's name!" declared
that officer, when the clothes line was sufficiently
knotted, and Montague had ceased struggling.
"You will be brought up on trial before the court,
and charged with house-breaking and resisting the
police."

It was only then that the wretched man began
to protest his innocence, and that Dorothea, falling
on her knees, explained his name, errand, and
intentions, and entreated her aunt to overlook the
matter.

Miss Morton wavered visibly. It was evident
that her natural kindness of heart gave her a bias
towards the lovers—she had, perhaps, been
through an affair of the same sort herself in her
youth—yet on the other hand her duty to her
sister urged her to take stern measures. She drew
the letter from her pocket with the seeming intention
of strengthening her resolution against the[188]
hopes of Montague, and was shaking her head
sadly over it, when the obstreperous servant,
who had rushed for no apparent reason, except
habit, to the door, bounded back, waving a yellow
envelope. A well-trained maid usually presents
a telegram upon a tray, but Miss Morton must
have been accustomed to Jemima's rough ways,
or was too agitated to rebuke her; she tore open
the missive, glanced at its contents, and with a
scream of joy sank fainting into her domestic's
faithful arms.

Of course, somebody had to read the telegram
aloud. The policeman seemed to think it was his
business. He picked it up, and proclaimed it in
the manner of a town crier. It was short, but
much to the point.

"Please encourage Montague Ponsonby.

Uncle has died and left him vast fortune.



"Elizabeth."

Everybody recovered at the good news. Miss
Morton rose from the arms of Jemima, apologized
to Mr. Ponsonby for having mistaken him
for a burglar, and invited him to stay to lunch.
He begged her not to mention the matter, and as
soon as his wrists had been released by the policeman,
he shook hands cordially with his prospective
aunt, and made a pretty speech expressing his
desire to become a member of the family.

[189]This was undoubtedly the moment for the curtain
to descend, but as that most useful of stage
adjuncts was conspicuous by its absence, the actors
lined up instead, and made their parting bows
with much éclat, Dorothea leaning elegantly upon
her lover's shoulder, Aunt Monica holding aloft
the telegram, the policeman saluting, and the
maidservant blowing kisses.

The applause was so thunderous that the performers
were obliged to beg the audience to use
self-restraint and limit the noise, for fear one of
the mistresses should feel in duty bound to pay a
surprise visit, and be scandalized at the costumes.
Moreover, a clanging bell warned them that the
recreation hour was over, so there was a hasty
exit and a quick change into normal garments.
Miss Hardy was kind that evening, and turned a
blind eye to deficiencies of order. She was seen
surreptitiously reading the program, and it was
the general opinion in the dormitory that she and
the other mistresses were much disappointed at
having been excluded from the entertainment.

"It did seem rather mean not to ask them,"
said Gowan, self-reproachfully, "though they'd
have spoilt the whole show. I vote we give
another some time—a prunes and prism affair
without any lovers in it—and let them all come."

"Right you are! But it will be a tame business
after this!" agreed Bertha.

chapter xiv

All in a Mist

The Blue Grotto entertainment was very successfully[190]
emulated by the occupants of the Gold,
Green, Rose, and Brown bedrooms, and quite a
sufficient sum of money was raised in the various
collections to pay half the expense of the little
wicker carriage for the invalid child. The
school took a special walk one day to Five Stone
Bridge, to see her take an airing in her new
chariot, and though they agreed that it did not
look nearly so picturesque as the wooden box, it
was undoubtedly far more comfortable, and more
suitable for one suffering from her complaint.
She smiled shyly at the long line of girls, whispered
a bashful "Thank you" for the chocolates
they gave her, and appeared scared to the verge
of tears when they spoke to her.

"I don't blame her, poor kid!" said Gowan,
as the school marched on, slightly disappointed.
"I shouldn't like to be made a show of myself,
and be stared at by everybody. She looked as if
she wished us far enough. Never mind! She'll[191]
eat the chocs. and enjoy herself now we've gone.
She's rather a sweet little morsel, isn't she, after
all?"

Christmas was drawing near, and the school
turned from schemes of general philanthropy to
the more pressing business of making presents for
immediate relatives and friends. Various pieces
of sewing, which had languished all the term,
were taken out and worked at feverishly; there
was quite an epidemic of needlecraft, and a wet
day was almost welcomed as affording an opportunity
for getting on with the gifts. Everybody
seemed suddenly in need of embroidery silks,
transfers, beads, wools, crochet needles, and other
such articles, and a special deputation waited on
Miss Walters asking permission to go a shopping
expedition to Glazebrook to purchase these indispensables.
Miss Walters, who always had an eye
to school discipline, made the matter a question
of marks, and granted the privilege only to those
whose exercise books showed a certain standard
of proficiency. Hester, Ida, Noreen, Joyce,
Bertha, Carmel, and Doris were the only ones
who reached the required totals, so under charge
of Miss Herbert they were sent off one afternoon
to the town, armed with a long list of commissions
from the luckless ones who remained behind.

Chilcombe Hall was four and a half miles from
Glazebrook, and there was no motor omnibus[192]
service. It was arranged, therefore, for the party
to walk on the outward journey, and to return
with all their parcels in a couple of taxicabs.
They started after an extremely early lunch, in
order to do the important business of matching
embroidery silks by daylight. It had been quite a
fine sunny morning, but clouded over at noon, and
although no rain fell the sky was gray and cheerless.

The girls did not much mind the condition of
the weather so long as they could see to make their
purchases. They spent a considerable time in
the principal fancy-work shop of the town, and
tried the patience of the assistants by demanding
articles that were quite unobtainable. A visit to a
stationer's and a confectioner's almost completed
their list of requirements, and only a few extras
remained to be bought. Some of the party were
standing in the entrance of a big general store,
waiting while Miss Herbert executed commissions
for Miss Walters, when Joyce was suddenly
greeted by a friend, a lady who was just about to
step into her motor.

"Why, Joyce!" she exclaimed. "Have you
been shopping here? So have I—look at my
pile of parcels! Have you finished? Are you
going straight back to school? I shall pass Chilcombe
on my way home, and can take you in the
car if you like, and some of your schoolfellows[193]
too. There's room for four if you don't mind
squeezing!"

It seemed much too good an offer to be refused.
Joyce suggested, indeed, that she ought to consult
Miss Herbert, who was in an upper department
of the shop, but Mrs. Baldwin declared she could
not wait.

"I don't see that Miss Herbert can mind.
We're quite ready to go, and it will save one
taxi," urged Bertha.

So it was hastily decided for Joyce, Bertha,
Doris, and Carmel to go in the car, and Noreen
ran upstairs to tell Miss Herbert of the arrangement.
The latter, with Hester and Ida, was
choosing lamp-shades and fancy candlesticks. It
was only when Noreen had gone that Carmel remembered
suddenly that she had never bought the
packet of chocolates which she had promised to
bring back for Dulcie. She stopped with her foot
on the step of the car, and excused herself.

"There's something I still have to do!" she
explained. "I must come back in the taxi with
the others after all! I'm so sorry!"

Mrs. Baldwin had an appointment at home, and
was impatient to start, so the door was slammed
on Joyce, Bertha, and Doris, and they drove away
all smiles, and waving a good-by through the
window. There was a sweets department close
at hand in the Stores, and Carmel bought a present[194]
of chocolate for Dulcie and of butterscotch
for Lilias, then went upstairs to the lamp-shade
counter to rejoin Miss Herbert and the other
girls. To her surprise she found they had gone.
She searched for them all round the upper story
of the shop, but did not see them anywhere. She
had kept a watchful eye on the stairs when buying
the sweets, and was quite sure that they had not
passed down while she was there. She returned
to the lamp-shade counter and questioned the assistant,
who told her that she had noticed the lady
and the three girls in school hats walk down
another staircase which led to a side door of the
stores. In much alarm, Carmel hurried that way
into the street, but not a trace of them was to be
seen. She walked as far as the railway station,
hoping to catch them there engaging a taxi, but
not a solitary conveyance of any description was
on the stand. She was indeed in a fix. She saw
clearly that, of course, they all supposed she had
gone with Mrs. Baldwin in the car, and by this
time they were probably on the road to Chilcombe
without her. It was nobody's fault but her own.

The feeling that she had only herself to blame
did not make the situation any less unpleasant.
She was four and a half miles away from school,
and unless she could secure a taxi, she would be
obliged to walk back. She inquired from a
porter, but he shook his head, and said it was[195]
unlikely there would be any cabs at the station till
the express came in at six o'clock.

Carmel thanked him, and turned away with her
eyes full of tears. Owing to her Sicilian education
she was not accustomed to going about by
herself. England was still more or less of a
strange country to her, and she did not know the
ways of the land. Lilias, in her place, would have
gone to the principal hotel, explained who she was,
and asked the manager to find some sort of carriage
to convey her back to school. Such a course
never occurred to Carmel, however; instead, she
tied her numerous parcels together, blinked back
her tears, set her teeth, and started forth to walk.

Fortunately, there was no mistaking the high
road, and it was still comparatively early. If she
put her best foot foremost she might reasonably
expect to reach Chilcombe before dark. She had
soon left the houses of Glazebrook behind, and
was passing between hedges and fields. For the
first mile and a half all went well; she was a little
tired, but rather pleased with her own pluck. According
to Sicilian customs, which are almost eastern
in their guardianship of signorinas, it was an
unheard-of thing for a young lady in her position
to take a country walk without an escort. The
remembrance of the beggars and footpads that
lurked about Sicilian roads gave her uneasy
twinges, and though she had been told of the comparative[196]
safety of British highways, her heart beat
considerably when she passed anybody, and she
scurried along in a flutter lest some ill-intentioned
person should stop and speak to her. The
farther she went from the town the fewer people
were on the road, and for quite half a mile she
had met nobody at all. She had been going
steadily down a steep hill, and at the bottom she
stepped suddenly into a great belt of fog that
lay like a white wall in front of her. It was as
if she had passed into a country of dreams. She
could scarcely see the hedges, and all round was
a dense mass of mist, clammy and cold and difficult
to breathe. It was silent, too, for no sound
seemed to travel through it, not a bird twittered,
and no animal stirred in the fields. Carmel felt
as utterly alone as if she were on the surface of
the moon. All the familiar objects of the landscape
were blotted out. It was still light, but this
white thick mist was worse than darkness. She
stamped along for the sake of hearing her own
footsteps. She wished she had a dog with her.
She kept to the left-hand side of the road, and followed
the hedge, hoping that the fog was only in
the valley, and that she would soon pass out of it.
On and on it stretched, however, till she must
have been walking through it for quite twenty
minutes. Then she began to grow uneasy.
There was a border of grass under the hedge[197]
bank wider than she remembered noticing on the
road, and the suspicion assailed her that all unknowingly
she must have turned down a side lane
and have lost her way.

She went forward now with doubting footsteps.
Where was the path leading her? If she could
only find some cottage, she could inquire. But
there was no human habitation, nothing but the
endless hedges and an occasional gate into a field.
What was that in front of her? She stopped,
and drew back with a cry of fear. Across her
track gleamed water. She had almost stepped
into it. Whether it was stream, pond, or river
the thick mist did not reveal, but it certainly
barred her footpath. She shivered, and turning
round, walked back in the direction from which
she had come, hoping to regain the high road.

Then a wonderful atmospheric effect was displayed.
A breeze sprang up and blew aside some
of the fog, and the rising moon shone down on a
land of white shadows. It was impossible to tell
what was real and what was unreal. On the other
side of the lane stretched what appeared to be a
vast lake, but might only be mist on the meadows;
cloud-like masses shaped themselves into spectral
forms and rolled away into the dim and nebulous
distance, where they settled into weird domes and
towers and walls, a veritable elf king's castle. It
was so uncanny and silent and strange that Carmel[198]
was far more frightened than she had felt before.
Old fairy tales of her childhood crowded into her
mind, memories of phantoms and ghosts and goblins,
the legends of Undine and the water sprites,
the ballad of the Erl-King in the haunted forest.
She had learnt the poem once, and she found herself
repeating the words:

"'Why trembles my darling? Why shrinks he with fear?'

'Oh Father, my Father! the Erl-King is near!

The Erl-King with his crown and his beard long and white!'

'Oh! your eyes are deceived by the vapours of night!'

"'I love thee, I dote on thy face so divine!

I must and will have thee, and force makes thee mine!'

'My Father! My Father! Oh hold me now fast!

He pulls me, he hurts, and will have me at last!'"

And as if that were not bad enough, the ballad
of Lenore recurred to her:

"How swift the flood, the mead, the wood,

Aright, aleft are gone!

The bridges thunder as they pass,

But earthly sound is none.



"Tramp, tramp, across the land they speed,

Splash, splash, across the sea;

'Hurrah! the dead can ride apace,

Dost fear to ride with me?'"

[199]By this time Carmel, alone among the magic
mist and moonlight, had reached a state of fear
bordering on panic. She longed for anything
human, and would have embraced a cow if she had
met one. Through the fog in front of her suddenly
loomed something dark, and the sound of
horse's hoofs rang on the road. A wild vision
of Lenore's spectral bridegroom presented itself
to her overwrought imagination, and she shrieked
in genuine terror, and shrank trembling against
the hedge. The rider of the horse dismounted,
and slipping his wrist through the bridle, came towards
her.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "Are you
hurt? Why, great Scott! It's never Carmel!"

"Everard! Everard!" gasped Carmel, clinging
desperately to his arm. "Oh! Thank Heaven
it's you! I'm lost!"

Everard comforted her for a while without asking
any questions; then, when she had recovered
calmness, he naturally wished to know why his
pretty cousin was wandering in the country lanes
by herself on a winter's evening. Man-like, he
blamed the school instead of Carmel.

"They ought to have taken better care of
you!" he murmured. "Why didn't the mistress
hold a roll-call, and count you all?"

"It wasn't her fault. It was my own mistake!"

[200]"Well, whoever's fault it was, the fact remains
the same. You'd better get on Rajah, and
I'll take you back to Chilcombe."

"Oh! that would be lovely. I'm so tired."

Perched on Rajah's back, with Everard walking
by her side, life seemed a very different affair
from what it had been five minutes before.
Carmel enjoyed the ride, and was almost sorry
when they reached the great iron gates of the
Hall.

"Won't you come in and see Lilias and Dulcie?"
she asked, as Everard helped her to dismount
at the door.

"I haven't time to-night. I must get home in
a hurry. I've an appointment with Mr. Bowden,
and he'll be waiting for me."

"And I've kept you from it! Oh, I'm so sorry,
Everard!"

"I'm not. Look here, if you're ever in any
trouble again anywhere, you come to me, and I'll
take care of you. Don't forget that, will you?"

"I'll remember!" said Carmel, waving her
hand to him as she watched him ride away down
the drive. Then she turned into the house to
set at rest the panic of anxiety which had arisen
over her non-appearance with the other members
of the shopping party.

chapter xv

On the High Seas

There was quite a merry gathering at Cheverley[201]
Chase that Christmas. All the Ingleton children
were at home, and with Cousin Clare and Mr.
Stacey, they made a jolly party of nine, a
satisfactory number, large enough to act charades, play
round games, and even to dance in the evenings
if they felt inclined. Without exception everybody
voted Mr. Stacey "an absolute sport." He
seemed to know a little about everything, and
could help Bevis to arrange his stamp collection,
or Clifford his moths and butterflies; he could
name Roland's fossils, give Dulcie tips for the
development of her photos, and teach Lilias to
use the typewriter. He was so cheery and good-tempered
over it, too, and so amusing, and full
of fun and jokes, that the young Ingletons buzzed
round him like flies round a honey-pot. There
are some people in the world whose mental
atmosphere appears to act like genial sunshine.
Because their uplifting personality demands the best
in others' natures, the best is offered to them.[202]
Mr. Stacey's lovable, joyous, enthusiastic
temperament made a wonderful difference at Cheverley
Chase. The constant squabbles and rivalries that
had been wont to crop up seemed to melt away in
his presence. Never had there been such
harmonious holidays, or such pleasant ones. It was
his idea to take advantage of a brief frost and
flood the lawn, so that the family could enjoy
skating there, though the ponds in the
neighborhood were still unsafe. It was Carmel's first
experience of ice, and she struggled along, held
up by her cousins, feeling very helpless at first,
but gradually learning to make her strokes, and
enjoying herself immensely. Then there was
scouting in the woods, and there were various
expeditions to hunt for fossils in road heaps and
quarries, or to explore hitherto unvisited parts
of the district. There was no doubt that Mr.
Stacey had a born knack with young folks, and as
a leader of Christmas fun he was quite unrivaled.

Among the changes for the better at Cheverley
Chase there was perhaps none so great as the
marked difference in Everard. Nobody could fail
to notice it. Mr. Bowden considered that the six
months spent as a chauffeur had "knocked the
nonsense out of the lad, and done him a world of
good." Cousin Clare said he had grown up, and
the younger boys, while not exactly analyzing the[203]
altered attitude, admitted that their eldest brother
was "a good sort" these holidays.

"Everard always so loved to be 'top dog'
before," Dulcie confided to Lilias. "I used to hate
the way he bossed us all and arranged everything.
He's far nicer now he doesn't pose as 'the young
squire.' Even when he used to tell us what he'd
do for us when he owned the estate, it was in
such a grand patronizing manner that it made me
feel all bristles. I didn't want to be helped like
that!"

"He is indeed very different!" agreed Lilias
thoughtfully.

The only person who did not notice any change
in Everard was Carmel, but she had never known
him in the old days, so fixed him at the standard
at which she had found him. The two were
excellent friends. Under her cousin's teaching,
Carmel learnt much of English country life; she
had the makings of a plucky little horsewoman,
and could soon take a fence and ride to hounds.
She was very much interested in the gamekeeper's
reports, in various experiments in forestry that
were being tried, and in motor plows and other
up-to-date agricultural implements that she saw
in use on the farms.

"It's all different from Sicily," she said one
day.

[204]"Yes. You see I'm training you to play your
part as an English landowner," replied Everard.
"You ought to know something about your
estate."

Carmel shook her head emphatically.

"Don't call it my estate, please! I've told you
again and again that I don't mean to take it from
you. How could a girl like I am manage it
properly? You know all about it, and I don't.
People can't be made to take things they don't want.
As soon as I'm twenty-one, I shall hand it straight
over to you. I'd like to see you master of the
Chase!"

It was Everard's turn to shake his head.

"That can never be, Carmel! Please let us
consider that matter perfectly settled, and don't
let us open the question again. It's an utter
impossibility for me ever to be master of the Chase.
That's final! I may have my faults, but I'm not
a sneak or a fortune-hunter."

"You're not cross with me, Everard?" Carmel
was looking at him anxiously.

"No, dear, but you're such a child! You can't
understand things properly yet. You will when
you're older."

"Then what are you going to do, Everard,
after you leave college?"

"Study for the Bar, I hope. It's the kind of
career that would suit me, I think."

[205]Carmel's dark eyes shone.

"Then I shall come to court, and hear you
plead a case! And when you get into Parliament—oh
yes! you are going to get into Parliament, I
know you are!—I shall sit in the Ladies' Gallery
and listen to your first speech. If you won't be
Squire of Cheverley, you must become famous in
some other way! In Sicily we think a tremendous
amount about being the head of the family.
You'll be the head of the Ingletons, and you've
got to make a name for the sake of the others."

"I know I ought to take my father's place to
the younger ones," answered Everard gravely.
"I'll do what I can in that line, though I'm not
much to boast of myself, I'm afraid. I'm not
the good sort you think me, Carmel. But there,
you little witch, you've cast your glamour over
me, somehow! I suppose I've got to try to be all
you want me. Princess Carmel gives her orders
here, it seems!"

"Yes, and in things like this she expects to be
obeyed!" laughed Carmel. "I told you once
before that you hadn't got the same shape of forehead
as the Emperor Augustus for nothing!"

It was after the girls had returned to school,
during some bitter weather at the end of January,
that Lilias caught a severe cold, and was kept in
bed. Dr. Martin, sent for from Glazebrook,
took a serious view of the case, and asked to[206]
consult with Dr. Hill of Balderton, the family
physician at Cheverley Chase. They sounded the
patient's chest, examined the temperature charts
kept by Miss Walters, and decided that the climate
of Chilcombe was too damp for her at present,
and that she would benefit by spending the
trying spring months in a warmer and drier atmosphere.
The result of this ultimatum was a large
amount of writing and telegraphing between England
and Sicily, several confabulations among Mr.
Bowden, Cousin Clare, Mr. Stacey, and Miss
Walters, and then the remarkable and delightful
announcement that the invalid, escorted by a detachment
of her family, was to be taken to Casa
Bianca at Montalesso on a visit to Mr. and Mrs.
Greville.

It was, of course, Carmel who had engineered
the whole business.

"It's nearly a year since I left home," she explained,
"so it's time they let me go and see them.
I couldn't take Lilias without Dulcie, it wouldn't
be kind, and even Miss Walters saw that, though
she held out at first. Then Everard has been
working very hard, and needs a change, but, if
Mr. Stacey goes with us, they can use Daddy's
gun-room for a study, and read for three or four
hours every morning. And Cousin Clare must
come too, to take care of us all; we couldn't leave[207]
her behind. Mother loved her when she came
over to fetch me last year. I don't believe she'd
have let anybody else take me away. Oh, how I
want to show Sicily to you all! Won't we have
absolutely the time of our lives? To think of
going home and taking you with me!"

It was wonderful how Princess Carmel seemed
to manage to get her own way. Mr. Bowden and
Miss Walters, who were the natural obstacles to
the plan, yielded quite amicably after only a short
opposition. Cousin Clare had encouraged the
scheme from the first, and Mr. Stacey and
Everard were all enthusiasm.

"You'll need us men to look after the
luggage," declared Everard, oblivious of the fact that
Cousin Clare had successfully piloted Carmel and
her boxes across the continent without any
masculine assistance, and was quite capable of traveling
round the world on her own account.

As Mr. Greville was one of the directors of a
line of Mediterranean steamers running from
Liverpool to Alexandria, it was decided that the party
should book passages in the Clytie, and go by sea
as far as Malta, crossing from there in a local
vessel to Sicily. The doctors thought that a sea
voyage would be better for Lilias than a long
tiring train journey across France and Italy, and
as it was a novel experience, the idea was attractive[208]
to most of the party. Fortunately they were
able to engage the accommodation they needed,
and set out without further loss of time.

I will not describe the journey to Liverpool, or
the wearisome drive through drab streets and
along miles of docks till they reached the Clytie.
She was a steamer of about 6,000 tons, and, considering
the crowded condition of all sea traffic
at the time, they might think themselves very
lucky to be able to secure cabins without waiting
months for the privilege. It was indeed only
owing to Mr. Greville's influence that they had
been able to do so. With much curiosity they
looked round the floating castle which was to be
their home for perhaps a fortnight. All seemed
new and strange to their wondering eyes—the
dining-saloon, with its long table and fixed, crimson
plush-covered chairs, that swivelled round like
music-stools to allow their owners to sit down on
them; the small saloon, with mirrors, piano, and
books, specially reserved for the ladies instead of
a drawing-room; the smoke-room for the gentlemen,
and the steward's pantry. The cramped
sleeping accommodation rather appalled the girls,
though Cousin Clare, who was a seasoned traveler,
assured them it was far more roomy than
that given on many other vessels. As a matter
of fact, the captain had turned out of his own cabin
for them, and was sleeping next to the chart-house[209]
on the bridge, so that at any rate they had
the best accommodation which the Clytie afforded.
Four berths in a space about nine feet square
certainly does not allow much elbow room; the girls
planned to go to bed in relays, and wondered how
they could possibly have managed in the still
smaller quarters at which Cousin Clare had
hinted. Neatness and order seemed an absolute
essential. There was no place except their berths
on which to lay anything down, and their
possessions had to remain inside their cabin trunks.
Each had brought a linen case with pockets, and
tacked it on to the wall beside her berth, to hold
hairbrush, comb, handkerchiefs, and a few other
immediate necessities, but when anything else was
wanted, the trunks must be pulled from under the
bunks and their contents turned over.

They had hardly arranged their luggage in
their cabin, when Everard came in to tell them
that the vessel was getting under way, and they
all rushed on deck to witness the start. Out
from the dock they steamed into the wide estuary
of the Mersey, where ships of many nations might
be seen, and the pale February sunshine was
gleaming upon the gray tidal waters that lay in
front, and on the roofs and chimneys of the great
city they were leaving behind.

"I can understand emigrants feeling it a wrench
to say good-by to England!" said Dulcie, leaning[210]
on the rail and fluttering her handkerchief as
a parting tribute to her country. "I'd be sorry
if I were never coming back any more! Home's
home!"

"Yes, and Sicily is mine!" said Carmel with
shining eyes. "I can't forget that every day is
taking me nearer to Mother! Only a fortnight
more, and we shall be at Casa Bianca! How I
hope we shall have a smooth voyage, and
perhaps we shall get there even sooner. Now we
have once started off, I feel as if I can't wait! I
didn't know till to-day that I was so homesick!"

The first twenty-four hours on board the Clytie
passed very successfully. The Ingletons dined,
spent an evening in the saloon, made the
acquaintance of other passengers, and next morning
amused themselves with deck games. They
began to congratulate the captain on the calmness
of the passage, but he laughed and told them not
to count up their blessings too soon.

"In February we may expect anything in the
way of weather," he remarked.

And he was right. Directly they entered the
Bay of Biscay they encountered a storm. At first
the girls thought it rather fun to feel the vessel
heaving its way through the water, to have to
hold on to the chairs as they crossed the saloon,
and to be nearly jerked off the stairs when they
went on deck. But as evening came on, one by[211]
one they began to feel the effects of mal de mer,
and long before the dinner-gong sounded had retired
thankfully to their berths. The time that
followed was an absolute nightmare. The heavy
seas dashed the Clytie about like a match-box.
She pitched and tossed, and rolled, so that one
moment the girls, lying on their backs, would
find their heels higher than their heads, and the
next instant the position would be reversed. The
violence of the rolling almost flung them out on
to the floor, and they were obliged to cling to
the wooden edges of their berths. All their possessions
were rolling about the cabin, the linen
tidies had tumbled down, and hairbrushes, shoes,
sponges, clothing, and trunks spun round and
round in confusion. The noise was terrific, the
wind blew a hurricane, and great waves broke
over the deck with tremendous force. To add to
the danger, the cargo in the hold shifted, and an
enormous fly-wheel, which, with some other
machinery was being taken to Alexandria, broke loose
from the chains that held it, and dashed about
smashing all with which it came in contact.

Even when morning dawned, the storm did not
abate. The girls heard afterwards that the men
on the look-out were obliged to be lashed to the
rail with ropes, that the captain never left the
bridge for twenty-four hours, and that the hatches
had been battened down to prevent any passengers[212]
from venturing on deck. At the time they
were far too ill to care about any such details;
Lilias and Dulcie would thankfully have gone to
the bottom, and though Carmel and Cousin Clare
were more cheerful, the physical discomfort
troubled them decidedly more than the danger.
The stewardess, who, poor woman, was herself
ill, managed to struggle into their cabin, and holding
on tightly to the berths, would pass them
drinks of tea in cups that could only be filled a
quarter full for fear of spilling.

All through that horrible day they lay still, for
the violence of the storm made it quite impossible
to get up and dress. Towards evening, Carmel,
who began to feel better, turned to thoughts of
food, and after nibbling a biscuit, begged for
something more. Now, when the Clytie was
pitching and tossing and generally misbehaving
herself, it was manifestly impossible to sit up and
wield a knife and fork, for the whole contents of
the plate would be whirled away at the next sudden
lurch. The stewardess did her best, however,
by bringing potatoes baked in their skins,
and pears, at both of which delicacies it was possible
to nibble while still lying flat, and holding
with one hand to the side of the berth. The
humor of the situation appealed to Carmel so
much that she burst out laughing, and then Cousin
Clare, and even Lilias and Dulcie laughed, and[213]
were persuaded each to try a potato, too. They
snatched intervals of sleep during the night, and
woke much refreshed.

Morning found the Clytie off the coast of Portugal,
and in comparatively calm waters. Feeling
very shaky, the Ingletons managed to dress,
and tottered on deck. Everard and Mr. Stacey,
both looking pale, though they assured every one
that they were all right, found comfortable chairs
for the ladies, and tucked them up snugly with
rugs. After the long hours in the stuffy cabin it
was delightful to sit in the sunshine and watch
the gray, racing water. Here and there in the
distance could occasionally be seen the funnels
of far-away steamers, and then there was much
excitement and focussing of opera-glasses and telescopes.
They wondered if other vessels had been
caught in the same storm, and how they had fared,
and Dulcie even hoped they might encounter a
wreck, and have the privilege of rescuing passengers
from open boats. She was quite disappointed
when nothing so romantic happened.

It was interesting to go down to lunch in the
saloon, and find the "fiddles" still on the table—long
racks with holes in which the dishes and
plates exactly fit, so that they cannot be shaken
about. There was naturally much conversation
among the passengers in relation to the storm,
and it was passed round the table as a joke that[214]
the captain himself had been seasick, though he
would not for a moment admit that he was capable
of such a landlubber's weakness.

"If I had known what it was going to be like,
I would never have come by sea!" declared Lilias,
whose symptoms had been more acute than those
of any one else in the party.

"That's what everybody says at first, young
lady," returned Captain Porter. "Wait till you
get seasoned a little, then you'll find out the
charms of Father Neptune's kingdom. I don't
mind betting that by the time we get to Malta,
you'll have fallen in love with the Mediterranean,
and won't want to leave the vessel and will be
begging me to take you on to Alexandria!"

"And leave the others to go to Sicily? No,
thanks!" laughed Lilias.

chapter xvi

The Casa Bianca

On the following morning the passengers of[215]
the Clytie woke to find themselves steaming into
the port of Tangiers. They scrambled through
their toilets and hurried on deck, in raptures over
the view of the old Moorish town against a
background of green trees, and the blue waters of the
bay in front. As some cargo was to be shipped,
there would be time to go on shore, and a party
was made up under the escort of Captain Porter
and of the Greek agent who had arrived on board
with the pilot. Donkeys were hired for the
ladies, and a cavalcade set forth to view the
Kasbah, or native market, and some beautiful
gardens outside the city walls. It was strange to the
girls to be in Morocco, with black faces all round
them, and to catch glimpses through open
doorways of Moorish courtyards, of marble fountains,
or of little Arab children chanting the Koran.
They were glad indeed of a masculine escort, for
their donkey-boys looked such a wild crew that
would have been frightened to be left alone with[216]
them, and the eastern aspect and general dirt of
the place, though picturesque, made them thankful
when they were safely back again on board
ship.

To their intense interest, part of the cargo consisted
of Mohammedan pilgrims for Mecca. The
rank and file of these encamped on the lower deck,
where they sat, ate, slept, and cooked their food
over charcoal braziers, filling up their time by reciting
the Koran in a monotonous chant. A
wealthy merchant from Morocco was also traveling
to Alexandria with his wife and family, and had
engaged all the second-class quarters of the Clytie
for his exclusive occupation. His lady was
brought on board closely veiled, and made no further
appearance, but Dulcie and Carmel, standing
one day on the upper deck, could see down to
the second-class deck, and noticed three small children
run out to play. The boys were each
clothed in a white garment with a gaily colored
striped sash, but the beautiful little girl wore a
dress of palest blue velvet, exquisitely embroidered
with roses. Carmel, who adored children,
could not resist the temptation to call to them
and throw them each an orange, whereupon some
warning voice summoned them inside the cabin,
and after that, though the boys occasionally
played on the deck, the girl was never again allowed
to expose her face to the gaze of strangers.

[217]Another brief halt was made at Algiers, a less
barbaric place than Tangiers, and quite up to date
and modern in its handsome French quarter,
though picturesque in the Arab part of the city.
It was possible to get carriages here, instead of
donkeys, and the passengers went on shore for a
delightful drive to the Caliph Mustapha palace,
through woods of eucalyptus, and pine, and palm,
and gardens of flowering shrubs. They would
have been glad to stay longer in such a beautiful
spot, but the Clytie was getting up steam, and
unless they wished to be left behind they must
go on board again.

The Ingleton party agreed afterwards that
their voyage down the Mediterranean was an experience
never to be forgotten. In the bright
February sunshine the blue waters deserved their
reputation. It was warm as summer, and all day
the passengers lived on deck, watching the smooth
sea and distant coastline, or amusing themselves
with games. Mr. Stacey, with his jolly, hearty
ways and talent for entertaining, was, of course,
the life and soul of everything. He organized
various sports during the day, and concerts and
theatricals during the evening. He was great at
deck cricket, which, owing to the limitations of
the vessel, is a very different game from that on
land. The balls are made of odds and ends of
rope, twisted together by the sailors, and must be[218]
hit with caution so as not to be sent overboard.
Any luckless cricketer whose ball goes flying into
the deep is immediately required, by the rules of
ship's etiquette, to buy another from the sailors
who make them, so an unaccustomed batsman may
be landed in much expense. Everybody found it
great fun, however, and when they had lost the
day's supply of balls, would take to ring quoits
and deck billiards instead.