"I'll make the beds!" announced Dreda, graciously. "I think all girls ought to learn to be domestic, and there's a real art in making beds. I've often thought how much better I could do it than any servant we have had. It's the trained intellect, I suppose. (I do _hate_ you, Rowena, when you sneer like that!) F'rinstance--I like my blankets just up to my chin, and if I tell Mary ten times a day, it's always the same--she doubles them down till you are all hunkley round the neck. Then that leaves less to tuck in at the bottom, and if you have a nightmare and kick, there you are with your feet sticking out in the cold, and have to get up and tuck them in, when you want to sleep! And I can't endure creases. I like the under sheet stretched as tight as tight. Everyone likes a bed made in a special way, and it _ought_ to be done. Think of the time one spends in bed! A third of one's life. It's a shame not to be comfortable. I should be an expert in bed- making. I'd keep a book to remind me of everyone's special fancies--" "And lose it the second day! Play all the experiments you like, but leave my room alone. I want no expert. The ordinary common or garden housemaid is good enough for me," said Hereward, cruelly. Dreda reflected sadly that a prophet was not a prophet in her own country, but she was too much fired with the new idea to relinquish it without a trial. Besides, hidden in her heart lay the reviving thought: "If I could prove that I could be of use in the house, perhaps they'd let me stay! I know quite enough lessons as it is!" The first two nights after hearing of the changed arrangements for her own education Dreda had cried herself to sleep, and had even succeeded-- with a little difficulty--in squeezing out a few tears as she dressed in the morning, or what was the use of breaking your heart if no one were the wiser, or pitied you for your pathetic looks? By the third morning, however, her facile nature had adapted itself to the inevitable. She was tired of being in the dumps, and reflected that with a little diplomacy she would be able to "manage" the school governesses as cleverly as she had done the Spider before them, while the Currant Buns looked meek, poor-spirited creatures, who would like nothing better than to be ruled. "_I'll_ teach them!" prophesied Dreda darkly, and the word was used in no educational sense. The future was thus swallowed at a gulp; but all the same Dreda thought it worth while to interview her mother on the subject of her domestic ambitions, and was much disappointed to have her generous offer kindly but firmly refused. "There is no necessity, dear. Thank you very much, all the same," Mrs Saxon said, smilingly. "We are no longer able to keep up two houses, but we can afford all the help that is needed for one. The two housemaids can keep the bedrooms in order very easily in this fresh clean air."