"What do you call this?" he asked, advancing to her and passing his hand down her shoulder. "My eye, Alice, you are next door to on fire!" "I'm not! I wish you wouldn't come bothering. Hugh." Having lodged his bombshell he departed, leaving Alice writhing under the certainty that now "beginning lessons" was put into Agnes's head nothing would get it out again. "I am going in to Aunt Phyllis," said her sister, getting up and putting away her desk. "I shall come too then," said Alice. "Do not come just yet, dear, I want to talk to auntie." "You're always talking to auntie, I think," grumbled Alice. "_Always?_" asked Agnes, feeling as if that were the last worry, and she could not bear more. "Well, not always; but, Agnes, I hope you will not let her persuade you to begin school with Minnie and me to-morrow because----" "Well?" asked Agnes. "I don't know exactly why, but it's horrid if you do, because I haven't had half enough time; and I never _thought_ we should begin when the boys did." "I never thought anything else," answered Agnes; and then she had gone in next door with a sense of utter failure. * * * * * And so Aunt Phyllis was right when she advised her to raise her eyes heavenward. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER XX. _A SURPRISE._ "I say, John, 'this 'ere' is rather tiring; and when we've done there will be nothing to show for it." "Only our possessions will be in order, and we shall start straight for the next term." "I don't know about that. Look at my possessions, and see if you call that 'straight'?" John picked his way over the drawers and boxes scattered everywhere, and surveyed his brother's treasures. There they were, lying in a heap--clothes, collars, neckties, papers, nails, string, knives, corks, ships, balls, fishing tackle, all mixed up pell-mell. "Is that your idea of tidying?" he asked. "Yes; put 'em all together, and then you know what you have to do, and can act accordingly." "I should think so! Act! all I can say is, I'd rather it was you than me." "How do you do it then?" asked Hugh hopelessly, watching his brother step back to his own precincts. "I take out one thing after another, and put those I want on the bed--so, and tear up and burn what I don't want." "And a nice smell you make!" said Hugh, laughing. "Eh? oh, well, that's what a fire's for, to air the room." "With a vengeance. I wish Agnes could have found us a large rag of some sort." "You'd have been for ever playing pranks behind it, and peeping through the holes of your 'rag;' I'm not sorry on the whole she could not." "I shouldn't have. However, that's neither here nor there. I'm going up to the attics to find my hammer; I believe Agnes has put it away tidily." He went off, and presently John heard him shouting for him to come up. "What do you want?" he called in answer. "You." "What for?" "A find; a grand idea."