Naturally Honor's unexpected and unprecedented act caused a great sensation. Lettice Talbot stopped when deserted by her partner, and the girls behind her were obliged to halt too. All wondered what had happened, and, in spite of their excellent training and good discipline, their curiosity got the better of them, and they craned their necks to look. Miss Farrar saved the situation by hurrying to Honor, seizing her by the shoulder, and forcing her back into her place; then the long line once more moved forward, and the Chessingtonians, slightly ruffled, but trying to carry off the affair in a dignified fashion, marched with admirable coolness into the church. If Honor had a little, surreptitious cry behind her Prayer Book, she managed to conceal the fact from the neighbours on either side of her in the pew; and if her eyes looked suspiciously red, and there was a slight tendency to chokiness in her voice as she walked home after service, Lettice Talbot, at any rate, was tactful enough to take no notice, though she seized the opportunity of explaining the school code of decorum, and was severe in her censure. "You ought to have told me before," said Honor. "How could I know that I mustn't speak to my own brother?" "I didn't even know you had a brother," returned Lettice; "and I never dreamt you'd do such an idiotic thing as rush at him like that. He evidently didn't appreciate it." "No! I thought he'd be more glad to see me," gulped Honor, not the least part of whose trouble had been Dermot's cold reception of her enthusiastic greeting. "How silly you are! Does any boy care to parade his sister before his whole school? I expect he'll get tremendously chaffed about this, poor fellow! Really, Paddy, you ought to know better!" Considerably chastened by Lettice's crushing remarks, Honor subsided into silence, and only reopened the subject when, in company with Janie Henderson, she had retired after dinner to a spot overlooking the playing-fields. It was a warm, beautiful afternoon, a day when you could almost hear the buds bursting and the flowers opening. The two girls spread their jerseys on the grass, and sat basking in the sunshine, watching a lark soar up into the blue overhead, or the seagulls flapping leisurely round the cliffs; or listening to the caw of the jackdaws that, in company with a flock of starlings, were feeding in a neighbouring ploughed field. The sea lay a sparkling sheet of pearly grey, and Honor looked wistfully at its broad expanse when she remembered that its farther waves washed the rocky shores of Ireland.