"But don't you see she's always posing? It's the very effort to be something outside herself that makes her so odd and peculiar. She's feeling after an ideal, and if she ever strikes it she'll be a huge success." "If in the meantime she doesn't marry a curate," put in Kathleen. "A curate, child?" "Yes; Regina's exactly the sort of girl who would!" "_I_ prophesy she'll go to college, take a tremendous good degree--wrangler or double first or something of that sort--and be head of a high school." "No, she won't. I know it seems her ordinary course, but she's not an ordinary girl. She'll wangle something different and unusual. She ought to marry a member of Parliament, not a curate--though I believe if she did she'd soon make him a bishop--I could just imagine her, very handsomely dressed, at a Mansion House ball, dancing with a foreign ambassador. Cave! Here she comes--with the air of a princess. Who's she copying at present I wonder?" The little group dispersed, giggling, as Regina entered the room and seeking out Lesbia drew her chum away. She was fond of private and confidential chats, but this one had a special point to it. The Websters were going to spend Easter at their country cottage, and invited Lesbia to go with them. "You were such a sport at Dolmadoc last summer. We all say we want you to come again," insisted Regina. Lesbia, with a dutiful demur about deferring to Mrs. Patterson, jumped--nay clutched--at such a gorgeous chance. She had been in much alarm lest she should be sent to Tunbury again to take charge of Terry for the Easter holidays, or packed off to spend them with Aunt Newton, who wrote periodical letters suggesting that her great-niece might leave school and take the place of the depressed companion who had at last plucked up courage and gone to a more congenial post. Dolmadoc, with its fresh mountain breezes and glorious views, seemed the very spot to blow away school cobwebs and to lay up a store of fresh energy for the coming term. Every corner of it would be like an old friend. So the Wednesday before Good Friday found Lesbia with the Webster family in a crowded train bound for North Wales, jammed tightly between two tourists, with her feet on a portmanteau and Una seated on her knee, but smiling through all discomforts as she caught the first glimpse of the grey hills from the carriage window.