“You don’t expect people to drive about the country in silk attire?” “Well, perhaps she is not out! Sister, do you know I am seventeen?” “Yes, my dear, certainly.” “Oh, look, look, there’s a dear little calf!” broke in Thekla, “and, oh! what horns the cows have. I shall be afraid to go near them! Was it only a sham mad bull when the little girl ran into the pond?” “It was the railway whistle, and she had never heard it in the fields. She rushed away in a great fright and ran into the pond, full of horrible black mud. The gentlemen heard the scream and dragged her out, and it would have all been fun and a good story if she had not been so much afraid of the French lady’s maid. It is curious how the sight of those brown eyes brought the whole scene back to me. We all grew so fond of Mysie Merrifield in the few days we spent together, and she is very little altered.” “Is she out?” asked Vera once more. “Oh, yes, she cannot be less than twenty.” “And I am seventeen,” said Vera, returning to the charge. “I ought to be out.” “If there are nice invitations, I shall be quite ready to accept them for you.” “But I am too old for the schoolroom and lessons and masters.” “Too old or too wise?” said Magdalen laughing. “I have got into the highest form in everything. Every one at Filston of my age is leaving off all the bother.” “Not Agatha.” “Oh, but Agatha is—!” “Is what? “Agatha is awfully clever, and wants to be something!” “Something? But do you want to evaporate? To be nothing at all, I mean,” said Magdalen, seeing her first word was bewildering, and Thekla put in— “Flapsy couldn’t go off in steam, could she? Isn’t that evaporating?” “I think what she wants is to be a young lady at large! Eh, Vera? Only I don’t quite see how that is to be managed, even if it is quite a worthy ambition. But we will talk that over another time. Do you see how pretty those sails are crossing the bay?” Neither girl seemed to have eyes for the lovely blue of the sea in the spring sunshine, nor the striking forms of ruddy peaks of rock that enclosed it. Uneducated eyes, she thought, as she slowly manœuvred the pony down the steep hill before coming to the Rockstone Cliff Road. The other two girls were following her direction across field and road, and making their observations. “A dose of lords and ladies,” said Agatha. “I thought they were rather nice,” said Paula. “I see how it will be,” said Agatha. “They will patronise the M.A. as Lady Somebody’s old governess, and she will fawn upon them and run after them, and we shall be on those terms.” “But I thought you meant to be a governess?” “I shall make my own line. I know how swells look on a governess of the _ancien régime_, and how they will introduce her as the kindly old goody who mends my little lady’s frock!”