The girl had almost forgotten her brother’s presence, and had entered into a little world of her own. She pictured to herself a pleasant, airy schoolroom with three or four happy, rosy children seated at the table, of which she herself was the head, strewn with the usual schoolroom paraphernalia: rulers, slates, dingy spelling-books of dog’s-eared, awe-inspiring columns of words, slate pencils whose points and bluntness alike set your teeth on edge when you looked at them; copy-books with pot-hooks and hangers to copy in pencil—for Hazel would permit no inkpots nor ink-bespattering pens to enter her domain, to sully the purity of clean pinafores and childish fingers. Yes, she would be careful that the room should be airy, for she knew that much of rosy-cheeked happiness must depend upon that; the lessons short and interesting: for how should a child, mewed up in a close atmosphere, set to learn a tedious task, which no older mind had first rendered pleasant and understandable by a little intelligent smoothing and explaining, be aught but fidgety, cross, and unhappy? A child’s mind should be lightly taxed, Hazel decided. She also decided that, however unorthodox it might be, she would always have freshly cut flowers upon her schoolroom table. Lessons were to be connected with pretty things, as well as with smeary slate and dingy spelling-book. Besides, how useful they would be in furnishing themes on which to discourse to her eager-eared young charges! These ideas floated through the girl’s vivid imagination within the space of a few moments only. Presently she roused herself, and shook herself free of the reverie into which she had fallen. "I suppose it ought to be the backward ones," she said with a sigh. "To think of Miss Le Mesurier becoming a governess," Teddie observed ruminatingly. "It is ridiculous, Hazel. Why, you would be romping with them round the table? And why are they to be so very young or, if older, dolts? Do you mean you cannot teach?" "I don’t quite know," Hazel returned, hesitating and pausing. "My—my education has been—er—has been rather choppy, hasn’t it?" she asked a little timidly, fearful of wounding her brother’s feelings, for the five boys had had practically the charge of their little sister’s education. Cecil, until he had obtained his present post in the Indian Civil Service, had given her a daily lesson in some or other branch of knowledge, at irregular times, certainly—an occasional hour before breakfast, or half an hour before bedtime. But the girl was an apt pupil. She marked, learned, and inwardly digested—her clever little brain seemed to be well nourished: for the food on which it was fed, albeit scanty, was of goodly quality, and the very ample time allowed her for the assimilation of each respective lesson was perhaps the secret, in part, of her strongly marked digestive power.