"I have been informing the neighbours," she said, after a silence, "that is, our good Rector's worthy sister, as my lady used to call her, that we are going abroad for education--for Kat and me. But that first we are going to pay visits to some old friends. Can anything sound more creditable?" "I don't care how it sounds," burst out Kattern; "it's very dull and disappointing. I wish I was the eldest. I wish _I_ had had even Una's chances! I wouldn't have thrown people over at the last minute. _I_ would have got married, and not been called a _fiasco_ in the society papers. I hate going abroad. We may get a little fun out of the visits, but I shall be sent on the dullest, and I haven't near as many frocks as Amethyst and Una." "You have quite as many frocks as you want at present," said Amethyst; "when you will have any more is another question." "Well," said Tory reflectively, "I mean to keep respectable. The Kirkpatricks' and Lorrimores' aren't very nice places for little girls. I shall have to take care of the rest of you. I'm very tired of our line of life, I should like to go to school. How much better good conduct pays! I dislike being ruined, and having a shady reputation." "I hate having all one's pleasure stopped," said Kattern. "Don't be a cross cat," returned Tory. "If we go for to quarrel, as girls in goody story-books do, when the author wants them to be naughty for a change, we shall get _no_ comfort in life. Goody! What a story I could write! I know! I'll be a sensational, realistic author, and make a fortune. Experience is better for that than education. Come along, Katty, let us take farewell of our childish haunts. They weren't our childish haunts. But no matter--" She dragged Kattern up from her chair, and out of the room, as she spoke; while Amethyst laughed. "I believe there's something staunch about Tory, at bottom," she said. "I'd rather trust her than Kat, among shady people." Una moved a little, and watched Amethyst for a few moments in silence. "Amethyst," she said, suddenly, "setting aside being married, what would you like best to do with your life?" "I think I should like to enlist for a soldier," said Amethyst with a laugh. "But really?" "Really. Oh, I could keep school, I always liked teaching. When I'm twenty-one, I shall think about it. We shall none of us ever have enough money to be comfortable, if we don't marry. What can become of us? I think, perhaps, I shall write to Miss Halliday and consult her, though I would rather teach in a High School than go back to Saint Etheldred's. I think there would be more life in it. I think one's title might be swallowed, and, as for my beauty reputation, one would be the safest of young women, for there never would be anybody one would care to look twice at." "I suppose they wouldn't like it, if rows of young men went to church to look at you?"