These last few days, as all school-girls know, are very precious: each one, as it arrives, seems more valuable than its predecessor. More and more pleasures seem to crowd into these last hours, more and more things are there to talk about, more and more matters to arrange. There is at once pain and pleasure mingled in each young breast: the pain of parting from the beloved friends who have been with one during the long summer vacation, the pain of giving up pleasure for discipline, of giving up freedom for a certain amount of restraint. But the girl who really longs to do her best in life does not go back to school with unmixed sensations of regret. Healthier feelings than these visit her heart. She will accomplish much in the weeks that lie before her. She will get to the other side of this and that difficulty. She will take an honourable place in the report which is sent to her parents at the end of the term. She will enjoy the healthy life of routine and wholesome discipline. The young girls who were inmates now of Sunshine Lodge were all of them, with the exception of Harriet Lane and Jane Bush, healthy-minded. They liked their pleasant school life: they were devoted to their parents and guardians: but they were also devoted to Mrs Burton and to the teachers in that delightful home of culture, Abbeyfield School. They therefore talked much of their future as they wandered about now in the dusk before coming in to late supper; and for a time even Robina and Harriet and Jane and little Ralph were forgotten. Had not Patience to make the very most of her last term at school? and how soon would Cecil Amberley be moved from the third to the sixth form? What would be the big prize to be competed for next Christmas? What would the new French Mademoiselle be like? and would their dear old Fraulein return once more to the school? Such and such questions occupied them: but by-and-by it was time to go indoors to dress for supper, and when they entered the house a shadow seemed to fall over their bright young spirits and they looked one at the other questioningly. "How selfish I am?" whispered Patience Chetwold to her sister. "I forgot in the excitement of our chat all about poor Robina. Girls, we must stick to our promise and worry out this thing to the very bottom." "But if Robina has spoken to Mr Durrant, what is there to be done?" remarked Rose. "Mr Durrant is a very determined man, and hates anything that he considers small and mean: he will not like our interfering. You see," continued Rose, "we have been out of this matter from the very first; the whole thing has rested between Harriet and Robina."