[XV] AMONG her other purchases in London, Aunt Lavvy had bought Hal a beautiful fountain pen--value about twenty-five shillings--which she gave him on his return to Winborough for the Christmas term. Bunny she tipped ten shillings. But her gift to Hal proved, among a variety of subtle points, that it was not the _money_ loss she had minded in the episode of the pound-note. [XVI] URSULA was just big enough to make a sacrifice, but not big enough to carry it off. For the first three or four days afterwards, she was able to behave gallantly enough, expectant of what Wordsworth, who had not, perhaps, a slender grace in titles, called “intimations of immortality”--but then, all at once, her belief snapped, and with it her patience, and she began to moon about the house in the spirit of a restive martyr who, after burning at the stake, has just discovered that the gates of heaven are only “cultured” pearl, and the streets an inferior rolled gold. Then Aunt Lavvy remarked at breakfast one morning: “My little sitting-room is ready now, and it looks charming, but I’ve just remembered that there’s no key to the door between the two rooms. I must send for Marks to have the lock fitted. Oh dear, and I had hoped I had done with workmen. They’re such friendly dears, and _will_ talk to me about the Government. Haven’t you noticed, Tom, how sound I’ve been in my politics just lately?” “Is the door locked, then?” “Oh yes, it has been as long as I can remember. And the key lost.” Mrs. Maxwell said breezily: “Ursula, it’s a topping day. It’d do you good to jump on your bike and pedal down to the town for Aunt Lavvy, before Miss Roberts is ready to study with you.” “Nina can go,” suggested Ursula, hating the errand. “She’s bursting with loving-kindness this morning.” “I’m going up by the eleven-forty to a matinée with Dorothy.” Mrs. Maxwell teased Ursula merrily for being a “lazy-bones.” Stanley came in with a scientific fact about the stimulant of exercise just before mental concentration, together with statistics proving the large percentage of millionaires who had started their successful careers by living far enough from the station to entail a run for the train every morning. Mr. Maxwell waggishly remarked that, in that case, cooks ought to be bribed to serve the breakfast late; and Ursula said indolently: “Send Honor Rose to the locksmith’s. She’s got your steadfast sense of responsibility, Stan.” Grace cried: “At _her_ age! Alone into Buckler’s Cross! You must be mad, Ursula. I sometimes let her toddle to the pillar-box at the corner, but----” “Do let me go to the locksmith’s for you, Aunt Lavvy darling, directly Miss Roberts has finished with me. I’d love to.” The offer was Lottie’s. “So as to miss your practising? What a brain!” “Ursula, it’s right-down shabby of you to tease your sister because she’s more obliging than you are.”