"I've nobody in the world but Dad," she answered, and there was just a suspicion of huskiness in her voice. "He's never gone far away from me before, but he's starting to-morrow for South Africa, and I'm to stop here till he comes back. He says it won't seem long. I hope I'm going to like it. I've only been three days in England, and you're the first English girls I've spoken to. Dad said England ought to feel like home, but it's a queer kind of home when one's all alone. Tell me what this school is like. Is Miss Poppleton nice? She gushed over me before Dad in the drawing-room, but she looks as if she could be a Tartar, all the same. I've had a little experience with schoolmistresses. I can generally take their measure in five minutes. She's got a sister, hasn't she--a Miss Edith, who showed me my bedroom? I expect I shall like her. Have I hit the mark?" The girls looked at one another and laughed. "Just about," said Fiona Campbell. "Poppie's temper varies like the barometer. One day she's at 'set fair', and calls everybody 'dear', or 'my child'; and the next she's at 'stormy', and woe betide you if you so much as drop your serviette at dinner, or happen to sneeze in the elocution class! Miss Edie's ripping! She doesn't teach much--only one or two classes. She does the housekeeping, and sees we keep our clothes tidy, and change our wet stockings, and all that sort of thing." "And how many are there of you? Remember, I've been dumped down here at a day's notice, and I know absolutely nothing at all about the school yet. Is it a big one?" "Twenty boarders and seventy-two day girls--that's ninety-two, and you'll make the ninety-third. There are eight Senior boarders, and they've got a sitting-room of their own, with a carpet on the floor. We, the common herd, are only provided with linoleum, as you see." "Eight from twenty leaves twelve! You're not all here." "No; two of us are practising, and the kids have half an hour with Miss Edith before they go to bed." "Shouldn't mind half an hour with Miss Edith myself. By the by, are you keen on Fudge here?" The girls stared. "I don't know what you mean," returned Hetty Hancock rather stiffly. "What is Fudge?" Gipsy threw out her arms in mock horror. "Shades of Yankee Doodle!" she exclaimed. "These benighted Britishers have actually never heard of the magic name Fudge! Why, in the States it's a word to conjure with! I've known some girls who absolutely lived for it." "You haven't told us what it is yet. Is it a game?" Gipsy laughed till she nearly collapsed off the table. "A game? No; Fudge is candy--the most delicious adorable stuff you ever tasted. Get me a pan, and some sugar, and some milk, and some butter, and I'll make some for you this instant. How you'll bless me!" "Don't I wish you could!" sighed Norah Bell. "But we're not allowed to make toffee except on the 5th of November. They let us have a pan then, and we boil it over this fire."