Carmel's astounding attitude, while it amazed her cousins in the extreme, was certainly highly satisfactory. The boys, when they realized that she had no desire to wrest their pets from them, waxed suddenly friendly. With the naive impulsiveness of childhood they gave her a full account of what they had expected her to be. "Perhaps I was rather frightened of you too, till I saw you all," she confessed. "We've none of us turned out such dreadful bogies, have we?" "Do you know what I'm going to call you?" said Clifford, slipping a plump hand into hers, and gazing up into the shining brown eyes. "Princess Carmel!" And Carmel bent down and kissed him. CHAPTER VI Princess Carmel In the long talk which Cousin Clare had had with Mr. and Mrs. Greville in Sicily, it had been arranged that Carmel was to be sent to school with Lilias and Dulcie at Chilcombe Hall. The new term, therefore, saw her established in a little dressing-room which led out of the Blue bedroom, and which by good luck happened to be vacated by Evie Hughes, who had left at Easter. It was soon spread over with Carmel's private possessions. They were different from the equipment of an ordinary English schoolgirl, and aroused as much interest as their owner. First there were the portraits of her mother, of her stepfather, Mr. Greville, and of the little half-brothers and sisters--Bertram, Nina, Vincent, and Luigia--taken by an Italian photographer in wonderfully artistic poses, and with classic backgrounds of pillars and palm trees. Then there were fascinating snapshots of her home, a white Sicilian house with a vine-covered veranda, and its lovely half-tropical garden with fountains and statues and pomegranate blossom, and trees hung with ripe oranges and lemons. Carmel's things seemed nearly all foreign. Her nightdress case was of drawn linen beautifully embroidered by the nuns at a convent; her work-box was of inlaid wood from Sorrento; the trinkets on her dressing-table were Italian; her clothes and shoes bore the names of Paris shops. Some of the books she had brought with her were in French; the calendar that hung on her wall held pictures of Naples and Vesuvius.