"Ah, well, it gives us all the longer to prepare! I'll run into my room and mend this horrid dress, and you might arrange these books of photographs. They are really awfully interesting, and of almost every country you can imagine. Old Mr Vanburgh collected them on his travels, so you have only to find out which country interests your special governess most, and--there you are! It will save no end of exertion!" She ran out of the room, and the two girls stood together, seized with a sudden shyness at finding themselves alone. "I--I think we know each other very well by sight," said Cynthia, and Betty blushed and blinked, remembering the crowded schoolroom window and her own scathing criticisms. "Yes--I'm afraid we have stared a great deal. We are so interested in our neighbours, but they are almost all old--you were the only young one like ourselves. We were frightfully anxious to know all about you." Cynthia gave a pathetic little sigh. "There's so little to know! There's just mother and me--and father at the other end of the world. It isn't half so exciting as having brothers and sisters, and going to school, and having good times all together. I have envied you so!" "Me!" cried Betty, aghast. "You envied _me_! How extraordinary! I've perfectly ached with envying you sometimes." "Oh, why?" asked Cynthia; and as Betty looked into her wide earnest eyes she felt of a sudden shamed and silenced. How could she acknowledge that she had envied the greater luxury, the cosy fire in the bedroom, the pink evening dress, the monopoly of attention, she who was so rich in the dear human companionship which the other lacked! "There are drawbacks to a large family, you know," she exclaimed. "We don't _always_ have good times. Sometimes we all get cross together and quarrel like cats, and then it feels as if it would be so nice and peaceful to be the only one. You have no one to quarrel with." "I have myself. I quarrel fearfully with myself," said Cynthia. She perched herself on the arm of a high chair and stared at Betty with her grave grey eyes. She wore an enamel buckle on her belt, a gold bangle encircled her wrist, her shoes, her stockings, her ribbons were all in the perfection of taste. Betty felt another twinge of envy at the sight, and wondered what in the world such a lucky person could find to quarrel about! In manner Cynthia was as simple and direct as Pam herself. A Pet she might be, but there was nothing pampered or self- satisfied for the most carping critic to discover. "I do get so bored with myself," she said plaintively. "My mother has stayed in England on purpose to look after me and my education, and it is always a case of `This would be good for Cynthia,' `That would be bad for Cynthia,' `What would be best for Cynthia?'--there is altogether too much Cynthia in my life, and I am sick of her. In a big family one would have so many people to think of that there would be no room for self."