"Oh, you'll soon get over that!" laughed Susie. "Besides," she continued, "winter is coming; and I can tell you we find winter very cold, even here." "I am glad of that," said Betty. "I hate hot weather; unless, indeed," she added, "when you can lie flat on your back, in the center of one of the moors, and watch the sky with the sun blazing down on you." "But you must never lie anywhere near a flat stone," exclaimed Sylvia, "or an adder may come out, and that isn't a bit jolly!" Sibyl had not yet moved off, but was standing with her mouth slightly gaping and her round eyes full of horror. "Do go! do go, Sibyl!" said Mary Bertram; and Sibyl went, to tell wonderful stories to her own special friends all about these oddest of girls who kept monstrous spiders--spiders that had to be fed on raw meat--and who themselves lay on the moors where adders were to be found. "Now tell us about Dickie," said Susie, who was always the first to make friends. But Betty Vivian, for some unaccountable reason, no longer felt either amiable or sociable. "There's nothing to tell," she replied, "and you can't see him." "Oh, please, Betty, don't be disagreeable!" exclaimed Fanny. "We can see him any minute if we go to your bedroom." "No, you can't," said Betty, "for he isn't there." Fanny burst out laughing. "Ah," she said, "I thought as much! I thought Mrs. Haddo would soon put an end to poor Dickie's life!" "Then you thought wrong!" exclaimed Sylvia with flashing eyes, "for Mrs. Haddo loves him. She was down on her knees looking----Oh, what is the matter, Betty?" "If you keep repeating our secrets with Mrs. Haddo I shall pinch you black and blue to-night," was Betty's response. Sylvia instantly became silent. "Well, tell us about the moor, anyhow," said Margaret. "And let's go out!" cried Olive. "The day is perfectly glorious; and, of course," she continued, "we are all bound to make ourselves agreeable to you three, for we owe our delightful half-holiday to you. But for you Vivians we'd be toiling away at our lessons now instead of allowing our minds to cool down." "Do minds get as hot as all that?" asked Hester. "Very often, indeed, at this school," said Olive with a chuckle. "Well, I, for one, shall be delighted to go out," said Betty. "Then you must run upstairs and get your hats and your gloves," said Fanny, who seemed, for some extraordinary reason, to wish to make her cousins uncomfortable. Betty looked at her very fiercely for a minute; then she beckoned to her sisters, and the three left the room in their usual fashion--each girl holding the hand of another. "Fan," said Olive the moment the door had closed behind them, "you don't like the Vivians! I see it in your face." "I never said so," replied Fanny. "Oh, Fan, dear--not with the lips, of course; but the eyes have spoken volumes. Now, I think they are great fun; they're so uncommon."