"Well, at any rate, Mrs. Courtenay and Monica are staying in rooms in the village while their house is let, and Monica is to come three times a week for French and history." "So this is really her home?" "Yes, and I heard someone say it is all her own. She's an only child, and her father is dead." "It must seem funny for her to see a whole school here!" "I expect it does. I shouldn't like it if the place were mine." "Is she nice?" "How can I tell? I saw no more of her than you did yourselves." Everybody was greatly interested in the newcomer, and ready, at the end of a week's acquaintance, to decide heartily in her favour. Monica was rather dignified and reserved in her manners, and evidently not much accustomed to mix with companions of her own age; but when her shyness began to wear off she proved most attractive. "She's not at all conceited, although she's mistress of the Manor," said Lindsay. "No, I can't say she gives herself airs in the least," agreed Cicely. "I think she behaves beautifully," said Mildred Roper. "She never so much as hints that it's her own house, or tries to take the lead, as some girls would certainly have done. She doesn't go anywhere without leave, nor even stop to play tennis unless she's asked. I heard her apologizing to Miss Russell yesterday for giving an order to the gardener. Mademoiselle says she is 'bien elevee' and 'tres gentille', and that's a great compliment, for she doesn't admire English girls as a rule." "No one could help liking Monica," said Kathleen Crawford. "She's charming. I call her one of the nicest girls I've ever met. And she's had such hard luck! I've just been hearing all about her from Irene Spencer." "How does Irene know?" asked Lindsay. "She stays sometimes with an uncle who is vicar of the next parish, and her cousins are friends of Monica's. It's a most extraordinary story--it might have come out of a book." "Oh, do tell us!" said the others eagerly. Kathleen's tale was in scraps, and missed out several points of which she was not aware at the time, so it will be better to set it down here as the girls learnt it more fully afterwards, for it was of great importance, and formed the basis of much that was to follow. The Courtenays, it appeared, were a very ancient family, and had inherited the Manor from an ancestor who had fought bravely on the Yorkist side in the days of the Wars of the Roses. In the present generation there was no male heir, and Monica was the last of her race.