"Oh, I'll manage him too." Thus she talked and chattered; but she was not out yet. She was very good-natured, and told me a great deal about the school. "I do envy your going there," she said. "I wish I was fifteen. And you are so jolly honest-looking and so downright plain. I do think you are unfairly equipped for this life, Dumps." She would never call me anything else now; I was Dumps to her--her darling, plain, practical, jolly Dumps. That was how she spoke of me. She had written to the girls whom she knew at the school, and had told me to be sure to introduce myself as her very dearest friend, as her newest and dearest. "They will embrace you; they will take you into their bosoms for my sake," she said. I am afraid I was very much enamoured of Lady Lilian; she was the type of girl who would excite the admiration of any one. Even Hermione, who knew her quite well, and whom I had liked in many ways until I met Lady Lilian, seemed commonplace and spiritless beside her. But Hermione, Augusta, and I were to go to school together. Of course we would be friends. A lady, a special chaperon, was to take us across the Channel; we would start on the following morning, and should arrive in Paris in the evening. I was excited now it came to the point Hannah met me on the last evening as I was going upstairs. She was standing just beside a corner of my own landing. She sprang out on me. "Hannah," I said, "you did give me a start." She laid her hand on my arm. "Let me come into your room with you," she said. I asked her to do so. She came up and spoke to me emphatically. "You are going. When you go she will go too." "She?" "Your own mother. She won't stay another minute. The house will belong to the new queen; but Hannah won't put up with it. I gave her notice this morning." "Hannah, you didn't." "I did, my dear--I did. I said, `You are turning the child out, and the old woman goes too.'" "Then you won't stay for the sake of the boys?" "No, I won't; they can manage for themselves, even Master Charley and even beautiful Master Alex. I will say, anyhow, she wasn't a bit unkind. She was very nice; I will say that for her. She's a very nice woman, and under other circumstances I'd be inclined to like her. But there! she's the new queen, and my heart is with the old one." Poor Hannah burst into tears; I had never seen her so overcome before. "You will come back belonging to the house as it will be in the future. You are too young not to grow up in the new house; but I'm too old, child. I'll never forget the old ways." "Hannah, fudge!" said a voice behind; and turning round, I was amazed, and I must say rather disgusted, to see my brother Charley. "Look here," he said, "this is all stuff and nonsense. We are as jolly as we can be, and our step-mother is as good as gold, and why should we make mischief? As to the old times--now I'll tell you what it is, Hannah, they were detestable."