'I feel all endowed to-day,' she informed Rogers, when he congratulated her later in the day on some cunning act of attention she bestowed upon him. It was in the courtyard where they all sat sunning themselves after _dejeuner_, and before the younger children returned to afternoon school. 'I feel emaciated, you know,' she added, uncertain whether emancipated was the word she really sought. 'You'll be quite grown-up,' he told her, 'by the time I come back to little Bourcelles in the autumn.' Little Bourcelles! It sounded, the caressing way he said it, as if it lay in the palm of his big brown hand. 'But you'll never come back, because you'll never go,' Monkey chimed in. 'My hair, remember---' '_My_ trains won't take you,' said Jimbo gravely. 'Oh, a train may _take_ you,' continued Monkey, 'but you can't leave. Going away by train isn't leaving.' 'It's only like going to sleep,' explained her brother. You'll come back every night in a Starlight Express---' 'Because a Starlight Express takes passengers--whether they like it or not. You take an ordinary train, but a starlight train takes you!' added Monkey. Mother heard the words and looked up sharply from her knitting. Something, it seemed, had caught her attention vividly, though until now her thoughts had been busy with practical things of quite another order. She glanced keenly round at the faces, where all sat grouped upon the stone steps of La Citadelle. Then she smiled curiously, half to herself. What she said was clearly not what she had first meant to say. 'Children, you're not sitting on the cold stone, are you?' she inquired, but a little absent-mindedly. 'We're quite warm; we've got our thick under-neathies on,' was the reply. They realised that only part of her mind was in the, question, and that any ordinary answer would satisfy her. Mother resumed her knitting, apparently satisfied. But Jinny, meanwhile, had been following her own train of thought, started by her cousin's description of her as 'grown-up.' The picture grew big and gracious in her mind. 'I wonder what I shall do when my hair goes up?' she observed, apparently _a propos de bottes_. It was the day, of course, eagerly, almost feverishly, looked forward to. 'Hide your head in a bag probably,' laughed her sister. Jinny flushed; her hair was not abundant. Yet she seemed puzzled rather than offended. 'Never mind,' Rogers soothed her. 'The day a girl puts up her hair, a thousand young men are aware of it,--and one among them trembles.' The idea of romance seemed somehow in the air. 'Oh, Cousinenry!' She was delighted, comforted, impressed; but perplexity was uppermost. Something in his tone of voice prevented impudent comment from the others. 'And all the stars grow a little brighter,' he added. 'The entire universe is glad.' 'I shall be a regular company promoter!' she exclaimed, nearer to wit than she knew, yet with only the vaguest inkling of what he really meant.