"Yes, it's all _un fait accompli_," she replied, "and on the whole I think the school has borne it beautifully. Come along, Cuckoo, don't pout! Rosemary must have some secrets I can't tell to the family baby. Remember, you score in other ways. It's luck to be born youngest." The three girls turned in at a gate and walked up a flower-bordered drive to a comfortable ivy-covered house. "Pendlehurst" was a modern house, and in Lorraine's opinion not at all romantic, but, with the exception of herself, the Forrester family was not particularly given to romance. Her father, in choosing a residence, had paid more attention to drains, number of bedrooms and hot-water facilities than to artistic beauty or æsthetic associations. He was a practical man with a bent towards mathematics, and counted the cubic space necessary for the requirements of seven children to be the matter of most importance. He had an old-established practice as a solicitor in the town, and had lived all his life at Porthkeverne. Of the large family of children only the three youngest remained at home. Richard and Donald were at the front, in the thick of the fighting; Rodney was in training for the Air Force, while Rosemary, anxious also to flutter from the nest and try her wings in the world, was to go to London to study singing at a College of Music. Her term began a little later than Lorraine's, so the two girls had still a few days left to spend together. They ran upstairs now to their joint bedroom, where packing was in progress. A big box stood under the window with a bottom layer of harmony-books and music tightly arranged. To Rosemary it meant the fulfilment of a long-cherished dream. As she looked at it, her imagination skipped three or four years and showed her a golden vision of herself--in a pale pink satin dress with a pearl necklace--standing on a concert platform and bowing repeatedly to the storm of applause which had greeted her song. "I can't tell you how hard I'm going to work," she confided. "I shall just practise and practise and practise. I know that wretched theory will rather stump me, but I'll wrestle with it. There'll be such a musical atmosphere about the place, it can't help inspiring one." "The hostel will be fun, too," said Lorraine, going down on her knees to inspect the dainty afternoon tea service that was being rolled up for safety in soft articles of clothing. "I can just picture you in your room, making a cup of cocoa before you go to bed." "And having in a few friends. It'll be the time of my life! I always wanted to go to boarding school, but this will be even better, because in a way I shall be my own mistress. I never thought I'd work Dad round to it. I've been in a sort of quiver ever since he said 'yes'. Who's there?" (as a loud series of rappings resounded on the door). "Oh, I can't have you children in here just now! Go away!"