There had been a disturbing ring of finality to Isolde's, "You can't get away from it," that seemed almost to slap Sidney in the face. Would they _always_--at least she and Isolde and Trude, Vick would manage to escape someway--be bound down there in the "quaint" bare house with the Trustees sending their skimpy allowances and long letters of advice and the ladies of the League of Poets coming and going and owning them body and soul? What was to prevent such a fate? They didn't have money enough to just say--"Dear ladies, take the old house and the desk and the pens and pencils and the old coat--they're yours--" and run away and do what they pleased; probably a whole dozen of Eggs would not get them anywhere! "What are you doing mooning there in the window?" cried Vick from the open door. Her arms were filled with a litter of boxes and old portfolios. "Where's Isolde? I want her to know I dusted things in the study." "Isolde's writing letters. Then she's going to dye something." "On Saturday!" "Yes. _I'm_ going to receive the League visitors today." "You!" Victoria went off into such a peal of laughter that she had to lean against the door frame. "Oh--how funny! What's _ever_ in the air today." "I don't know why it's so funny. I'm--" "Fifteen. So you are. But bless me, child, the Leaguers will never accept you in a middy blouse and pigtails. What's Isolde _thinking_ of? And you look _much_ too plump! Now--" But Sidney stalked haughtily past her tormenter into the hall. Vick's bantering, however, had stung her. The old clock on the stair landing chiming out the approaching hour of the League visitors warned Sidney that there was not time to change her middy with its faded collar; nor to wind the despised pigtails, around her head in the fashion Mrs. Milliken called "So beautifully quaint." Anyway, if there were all the time in the world she would not do it. She'd begin right now being her own self and not something the League wanted her to be because she was a poet's daughter! Isolde and Trude might yield weakly to their fate but she would be strong. Perhaps, some day, she would rescue them--even Vicky! But as an unmistakable wave of chattering from without struck her ear her fine defiance deserted her. She ran to the door and peeped through one of the narrow windows that framed the door on either side. At the gate stood Mrs. Milliken and a strange woman. Behind them, in twos, stretched a long queue of girls--girls of about her own age. They wore trim serge dresses with white collars, all alike. They carried notebooks in their hands. They leaned toward one another, whispering, giggling.