"Of course, she doesn't, wife. We always pack up like herrings in a barrel at the seaside, don't we?" "That's true enough," said Mrs Griffiths, "and I must own sometimes I find it a bit stuffy--that is, when I'm indoors." "But you don't when you're on the seashore, wife, when you're looking at the merry-go-rounds and listening to the bands, and watching the niggers dancing, and seeing the Punch and Judy shows." Mrs Griffiths smiled and her face relaxed. "We'll wade and we'll bathe and we'll go out in boats, and we'll have no end of fun!" said Flossie. "Oh, it will be prime." She and Nesta wandered away by themselves when the meal came to an end. "I didn't even tell him a lie. Didn't I manage splendidly?" said Nesta. Flossie replied that she did. "Now, I must really be going home. I'll have to be as good as gold; butter won't melt in my mouth between now and Saturday," said Nesta. She flew home. In the garden she met Molly and Ethel, who were walking up and down, having a rather dull time, poor girls, and were anything but contented. When they saw Nesta they pounced upon her. "Now, Nesta, it's all arranged. Marcia has been planning everything. She goes to the St Justs on Saturday." "On Saturday?" said Nesta, starting and colouring very deeply. "Yes, I thought you knew." "I knew she was going, but I didn't know the day. You needn't look at me as though you wanted to eat me." "You're so horribly disagreeable, Nesta, ever since you got that bedroom to yourself," said Ethel. "I hope you've put out of your mind, once and for ever, that selfish plan of yours of going away to the seaside with Flossie Griffiths." "Am I likely to think much more about it after the way you snubbed me this morning?" replied Nesta. "Well, that's all the better, for you will be kept very much occupied. Marcia is a martinet, I will say. Mule Selfish is no word for her. The way she has planned everything--all our time taken up--Molly is to house-keep, and I am to look after the house linen, and Nurse Davenant is to superintend every scrap that mother eats, and mother is to have all her time planned so that she is to be as cheerful as possible, and Marcia will come to see her once a week, and if there is any change for the worse, Marcia will come right back, and won't we have a time of it, if that happens?" "I do think," said Nesta, "that if we ever made a mistake in our lives, it was that time when we begged and implored father and Horace to bring Marcia back." "Well, there's more to come. Father and Horace are also going away on Saturday." Nesta's face very perceptibly brightened. If Marcia was away, as well as her father, and also her brother, why, there would be nobody to make much fuss about her having absented herself. When she was at Scarborough, she would be allowed to stay there, for there would be no one to force her back. How delightful.