"Come! come! let us look at each other, let us find each other out!--How big you all are! Come and tell me what work you are doing, and what you each go in for; let's have a splendid talk together." She pulled Una down beside her on the sofa, and looked smiling into her face. She had not been grown-up so long as not to be quite ready for companionship with these younger girls, and girls came natural to her. Una looked back wistfully into the laughing eyes. She was as tall as Amethyst, and her still childish dress accentuated the lanky slenderness of her figure, which seemed weighed down by the enormous quantities of reddish brown hair that fell over her shoulders and about her face. Indeed she looked out of health; all the colour in her face was concentrated in her full red lips, and her wide-open eyes were set in very dark circles. She looked, spite of her short frock and her long hair, older than her real age, and as unlike a natural healthy school-girl as the most "intense" and aesthetic taste could desire. Kattern was prettier, and, as Amethyst expressed it to herself, more comfortable-looking, but she had a stupid face; and by far the shrewdest, keenest glances came from Tory's darker eyes, which had an elfish malice in them, that caused Amethyst mentally to comment on her as "a handful for any teacher." "We don't do any work--we're neglected," she said, perching herself on the arm of the sofa, and looking at her sisters as they sat upon it, with her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands. "I expect we shall have some lessons now, though, we're `in the school-room,' now we are in the country--like the Miss Leighs." "You could not do regular lessons when you were travelling," said Amethyst, "but I dare say you're all good at French and German. We might have some readings together anyhow. I don't mean to be idle, Una--you'll help me to stick to work of some kind, won't you?" "You'd better ask me, Amethyst," said Tory. "I think education might be amusing. Una never does anything she can help of any sort, she's always tired or something." "There's never anything worth doing," said Una languidly, "it's so dull." "It won't be so dull next week," said Kattern, with meaning, while Una coloured and shot a savage glance at her. "Dear me!" said Amethyst. "We shan't be dull. There are always such heaps of things to do and to think of. But tell me about the people who are coming next week, and about the neighbours round here." "There are Miss Riddell and her brother," said Una. "He's the parson, but it seems they're in society here. They'll be a bore most likely." "And there are the Leighs," said Kattern. "There's a young Leigh, who looks rather promising." "And next week," said Tory, "the Lorrimores, and Damers, and Tony." "Who is Tony?"