If there was one thing more than another that the girls of the Dower House considered a particular and pressing grievance it was a wet Saturday afternoon. They were all of them outdoor enthusiasts, and to be obliged to stop in the house instead of tramping the moors or roaming on the sea-shore was regarded as a supreme penance. On the Saturday following the mapping expedition there was no mistake about the rain--it seemed to come down in a solid sheet from a murky sky, which offered absolutely no prospect of clearing. The overflowing gutter-pipes emptied veritable rivulets into a temporary pond on the front drive; the lawn appeared fast turning into a morass; and even indoors the atmosphere was so soaked with damp that a dewy film covered banisters, furniture, and woodwork, and the wall-paper on the stairs distinctly changed its hue. In VB classroom the girls hung about disconsolately. There was to have been a special fossil foray that afternoon under the leadership of a lady from Perranwrack, who took an interest in the school, and who had thrown out hints of a fire of driftwood and a picnic tea among the rocks. "It's so particularly aggravating, because Miss Hall has to go up to London on Monday and won't be back for weeks, so probably she won't be able to arrange to take us again this term," grumbled Romola. "It's too--too _triste_!" murmured Deirdre in a die-away voice, arranging a cushion behind her head with elaborate show of indolence. "Weally wetched!" echoed Dulcie lackadaisically, sinking into the basket-chair with an even more used-up air than her chum. "Good old second best!" laughed Betty. "Whom are you both copying now? Have you been gobbling a surreptitious penny novelette? I can generally tell your course of reading from your poses. These present airs and graces suggest some such title as 'Lady Rosamond's Mystery' or 'The Earl's Secret'. Confess, now, you're imagining yourselves members of the aristocracy." "I believe the penny novelettes are invariably written in top garrets by people who've never even had a nodding acquaintance with dukes and duchesses," said Barbara. "The real article's very different from the 'belted earl' of fiction. The Clara-Vere-de-Vere type is extinct now. If you were a genuine countess, Deirdre, you'd probably be addressing hundreds of envelopes in aid of a philanthropic society, instead of lounging there looking like a dying duck in a thunderstorm. Don't glare! I speak the solemn words of truth." "You make my he--head ache," protested Deirdre with half-closed eyelids, but her complaint met with no sympathy. Instead, several strong and insistent hands pulled her forcibly out of her chair and flung away the cushion. "I tell you we're sick of 'Lady Isobel' or whoever she may be. For goodness' sake be somebody more cheerful if you won't be yourself. Can't you get up an Irish mood for a change? A bit of the brogue would hearten up this clammy afternoon."