"She's right, quite right," Betty acknowledged to herself. "It _is_, or just as near it as is possible for a girl to get who is surrounded by good influences. How hateful it sounds! I did feel ashamed of myself. I'm the eldest girl, and I ought to set a good example. If I were quiet and gentle and resigned, they would all look up to me, and Miles wouldn't snub me any more. I'll turn over a new leaf from this very hour, and remember my blessings, and never grumble any more, or be cross, or snappy, and be glad, absolutely glad, when other people are better off than myself. After all, I'm seventeen. It's time I was growing resigned. I won't envy anybody any more." Betty jumped up from her seat, lighted her candles, and began to make her modest toilet for dinner with an air of satisfied finality. It was characteristic of her that she was never satisfied with half-measures, and was always supremely confident of her ability to carry out new resolutions. The determination to become a perfect character was taken as easily as if it had been a choice between a couple of ribbons, and she put on her quietest blouse, and parted her hair in the middle, brushing it smoothly over her ears, with an artistic satisfaction in dressing for a part. The resolution held good exactly a quarter of an hour, at the expiration of which time Jack and Jill dashed suddenly out of the schoolroom as their elder sister was pursuing a staid course downstairs, when Jill promptly seized hold of her silk sleeves with sticky fingers, and Jack exclaimed, "I say! What a fright!" with brotherly candour. Betty snapped, of course, and snapped vigorously. It was not her fault, she reflected. No one could be expected to be patient if other people would insist on being so horrid and exasperating! CHAPTER THREE. THE TREVOR FAMILY. The family dinner was served at seven o'clock, and all the children, down to Pam herself, appeared at table, for Dr Trevor liked to have his family round him at the close of the day, and, thanks to his wife's good management, the meal was always a bright and cheery occasion. Mrs Trevor was a devoted mother to every one of her flock, but the person in the house whom she mothered most of all was her hard-working husband, whose life was so devoted to others that he had little time to consider himself. From the children's earliest years they had been taught that to "worry father" was one of the most serious offences which they could commit.