Owing, however, to some stupid mismanagement on the part of the nurse, they had got “mixed,” so to speak, when only a few hours old, and it was not positively known which of them was the elder. In this embarrassing state of affairs they had long ago—that is to say, from the date of their commencing to keep house together—come to a mutual arrangement by which they agreed to take it in turns, month and month about, to enact the part of elder sister, during which time the other deferred to her in every way, only, in her turn, to occupy the superior position and be deferred to throughout the following month. It was an arrangement well understood among the circle of their friends and acquaintance, but, in order that there should be no mistake in the matter, each in turn, during the month she filled the _rôle_ of elder sister, wore round her neck, by way of distinguishing token, an old-fashioned gold chain from which was suspended an equally old-fashioned locket, which, when open, displayed on one side a miniature of their mother, and on the other a lock of their father’s hair. Thus it came to pass that whenever people visited at Vale View House, or whenever they were called upon by the sisters, they would nudge each other and whisper, “This is Miss Matilda’s month,” or Miss Jane’s, according to which of them was wearing the chain and locket; and to that one they would have been considered by the sisters as lacking in good manners, had they failed to address her as “_Miss_ Thursby,” or to treat her with an added shade of deference as representing for the time being the head of the family. By every one who knew them, both rich and poor (and to numbers of poor people they were very well known indeed) the ladies of Vale View were beloved and respected; although it might be that there were not wanting some would-be “superior” persons who smiled to themselves at certain old-fashioned ways and quaint simplicities of speech and manner which they were quite incapable of appreciating. But such people are to be met with everywhere. It was Mrs. Trippington-Fynes, a new-comer at St. Oswyth’s, and regarded as quite an acquisition to the somewhat restricted circle of society in the little town, who, after having been introduced to the Misses Thursby and chatted with them awhile, remarked to Mrs. Sandilands, wife of the popular squire of that name: “Do you know, my dear, I find them quite too deliciously archaic.” It was a phrase that was repeated and taken up, and for many a day afterwards the sisters were spoken of by one person or another as being “quite too deliciously archaic, don’t you know.” But we have left Ethel all this time alone in the garden.