"It's most unlucky you've started with one of your bad attacks of bronchitis before Christmas. How am I going to get you through the winter, child, if you've begun to take cold already? I'd like to wrap you in cotton-wool and pack you away in a box to sleep like a dormouse till the warm weather woke you up! Whinburn certainly doesn't suit you. It may be bracing, but people with delicate chests can be too much 'braced' sometimes. Is the poultice too hot? Be a brave girl! Remember, Father said 'the hotter the better!' Bear it as long as you can. Why, there's the bell! Is it Merle home already? Surely she's early to-day?" Mavis, protesting against the poultice, looked up eagerly as stamping feet resounded on the stairs, and her sister, with coat and hat lightly powdered with new-fallen snow, burst into the room. "Hello, Mavis! You've got the best place, in bed! It's detestable out to-day. The wind's like a knife, and it's beginning to snow again. Oh, it was cold at school! My fingers were simply frozen. The end of Miss Donald's nose was quite blue, and her temper was bluer. She snapped my head off when I asked her a question. We played tig in the gym at 'break', though, and got warm, but Gertie upset the coal-box and made such a mess, and Miss Greene scolded ever so, and said we were trampling coal-dust into the floor, and it would have to be washed again before dancing lesson. It wasn't really Gertie's fault; Joan pushed her. I met the postman outside, Mumsie. He gave me this parcel. It's for you. You're always the lucker! I wish it was mine." "We'll all share it together," said Mrs. Ramsay, taking the package to Mavis's bed and snipping the string with her scissors. "It has the Durracombe postmark, and it's Aunt Nellie's writing, and I think I shan't be very far wrong if I guess flowers." The contents of the box were soon spread forth on the invalid's counterpane. They were an amazing display, for it seemed as if the seasons had overlapped, and late autumn had joined hands with early spring. There were yellow rosebuds, and passion flowers, and a few montbretias, and some Michaelmas daisies, a big bunch of purple violets, some primroses, polyanthuses, a pansy or two, blossoming ivy, little pink double daisies, and beautiful sprays of the yellow jessamine. Mavis fingered them delicately as if they were priceless treasures. The colour had flooded into her cheeks and her eyes shone like stars. "Muvvie! Surely they come from a greenhouse?" she asked. "They _can't_ be growing out-of-doors _now_." "Indeed they can! You don't know Durracombe. The flowers go blooming along all the winter--if you can call it winter down there. I told you it was a different climate from Whinburn. Oh, how sweet they smell! I remember just the exact spot in the dear old garden where these violets grow."