"Well, Penelope, you are a good deal too young to choose for yourself, and if father can get an introduction to Mrs Silchester, I am sure he will avail himself of it. The school is most select; only the very nicest of girls go there." "Isn't it the school where that horrid Marcia Aldworth was--that detestable old-maid thing." "She is an exceedingly nice girl." "Clay! As though she suited you one little bit! Why, I saw her one day, and she was as pokery as possible." "But she is a friend of Miss St Just's." "Oh, Clay! Clay! I will be good; I will be good, and we needn't talk of that horrid school just now, need we, just when my long beautiful holidays are beginning. I will be good, I will, if you will only help me." "Well, Puss, what can I do?" "I did something to-day--it wasn't really wrong, but I am a bit frightened. I must tell you." "You are a queer little thing--what can it be?" Penelope looked full up at her sister. "You are as proud as Punch--you are, you old thing! And now I shall whisper to you why you are go proud?" "Yes, do; whisper to me." "You have got to know that Miss St Just--that idol of yours, that angel up in the clouds that you are always thinking is too good for this world; you got to know her to-day at the Aldworths'." "I did, and I find her not at all an angel up in the clouds, but a very pretty and sweet angel with her feet on the solid earth. And she is ever so pleased to know me; she showed it, and spoke about Court Prospect, and I described how we had improved it, and she was so interested. I asked her if she would come to see it, and I'm convinced she will come, and right gladly. I'm going to tell father all about it. Father will be pleased." "Then, that's all right. If you tell father about that at the same time you are telling him about me, why it will be all right." "About you? What in the world about you?" "Oh, I'm coming to that. You remember that time when that Nesta was staying here?" "That Nesta. I thought you adored her." "I don't adore her; I dislike her very much. She is not a bit a nice girl. She is of the Flossie Griffiths style, and you know quite well father wouldn't like us to associate with the Griffiths." "I should think not, indeed," said Clara. She had visions, of herself as the special friend of Angela St Just, of visiting Hurst Castle, of getting to know the county folks. She had visions of Angela reposing in the spare room at Court Prospect, with its gilt and ormolu and white paint, which used to be called the Cedar room in the days of the St Justs. She had visions of Angela laying her head on the richly embroidered linen, and saying to herself, "What cannot money do to improve a place." Among the many thoughts which flitted into her brain, she forgot Pen's anxious, little piquant face, and just at that moment Mr Carter came along. He paused, stared at his two daughters, and came deliberately in.