This was an extraordinary exhibition to Isobel, who had travelled, and packed, and always moved to a new place with avidity. She said now that she would give anything she was worth at that moment to be flying off to London like Jean. "Oh," said Jean, "it’s like a knife that has cut to-day away from to-morrow, and all of you from that crowd I’m going to. Do you know," she said, as though it were quite an interesting thing for them to hear about, "I feel quite queer--and sick. Do you think that perhaps there is something wrong with me?" She even mentioned appendicitis as a possible ailment. "You are getting home-sick," said Mabel, who knew the signs. Jean was much annoyed. "You don’t understand," she said. "I’m not silly in that way. I don’t feel as though I could shed a tear at going away. I’m just over-joyed at the prospect. But I’m so wobbly in other ways. I’m really terrified that I’m going to be ill." Poor Jean ate no dinner. Jean didn’t sleep. Jean perambulated the corridors, and thought of the night when Cuthbert got hurt. She wished that she were enough of a baby to go and knock at her mother’s door, as they had done then, and get her to come and comfort her. She hoped her father wasn’t vexed that she had asked to go, and hadn’t minded leaving him. Then she remembered how she intended coming home--a full-blown prima donna sort of person--one of whom he should really be proud. This ought to have set her up for the night, but the thought of it failed in its usual exhilarating effect. The sick feeling returned, with innumerable horrors of imaginary pain, and a real headache. Jean saw the dawn come in and sincerely prayed that already she had not appendicitis. CHAPTER XVII A Reprieve The first two letters from Jean were so long, that one imagined she must have sat up most of the night to get them off.