"Oh well, dearest--but never mind, I'm all right again now--run away, my lamb. Miss Rodney must have come; it's past lesson time." "Are you sure you're all right?" said Joan doubtfully. Mrs. Ogden leant back in the chair and gazed pensively out of the window. "My little Joan," she murmured. Joan trembled, a great tenderness took hold of her. She stooped and kissed her mother's hand lingeringly. But as the sisters stood in the hall outside, Joan looked even paler than usual, her face was a little pinched, and there was a curious expression in her eyes. "Oh, Joan, it was jolly of you," Milly began. Joan pushed her roughly. "You're a poor thing, Milly." "What's that?" "What you are, a selfish little pig!" "But----" "You haven't got any guts." "What are guts?" "What Alice's young man says a Marine ought to have." "I don't want them then," said Milly proudly. "Well, you ought to want them; you never _do_ own up You _are_ a poor thing!" CHAPTER TWO 1 SEABOURNE-ON-SEA was small and select. The Ogdens' house in Seabourne was small but not particularly select, for it had once been let out in apartments. The landlord now accepted a reduced rent for the sake of getting the colonel and his family as tenants. He was old-fashioned and clung to the gentry. In 1880 the Ogdens had left India hurriedly on account of Colonel Ogden's health. When Milly was a baby and Joan three years old, the family had turned their backs on the pleasant luxury of Indian life. Home they had come to England and a pension, Colonel Ogden morose and chafing at the useless years ahead; Mrs. Ogden a pretty woman, wide-eyed and melancholy after all the partings, especially after one parting which her virtue would have rendered inevitable in any case. They had gone to rooms somewhere in Bayswater; the cooking was execrable, the house dirty. Mrs. Ogden, used to the easy Indian service and her own comfortable bungalow, found it well-nigh impossible to make the best of things; she fretted. That winter there had been bad fogs which resulted in a severe heart attack for Colonel Ogden. The doctor advised a house by the sea, and mentioned Seabourne as having a suitable climate. The result was: Leaside, The Crescent, Seabourne. There they had been for nearly nine years and there they were likely to remain, in spite of Colonel Ogden's grumbling and Mrs. Ogden's nerves. For Leaside was cheap and the air suited Colonel Ogden's heart; anyhow there was no money to move, and nowhere in particular to go if they could move. Of course there was Blumfield. Mrs. Ogden's sister Ann had married the now Bishop of Blumfield, but the Blanes were, or so the Ogdens thought, never quite sincere when they urged them to move nearer to them. They decided not to try crumb-gathering at the rich man's table in Blumfield.