"Of course you did, when we decided to keep all our nicer blouses in there! Do hurry up. Here, I’d better do you up now. Fancy all this fuss just to go next door! I was going in my blue flannel that I had on this morning, but Aunt Kezia gave such stringent orders. Isn’t it absurd?" "Ridiculous. Oh, you’re pinching a bit of neck in!" Nell, at the door, looked back. "Sure you’ve got everything? Your hair ribbon?" "Yes, everything." When Nell and the Atom were ready they went back to Molly’s room. Worse chaos than before greeted them. Molly was crawling under the bed. "I’ve lost one of my shoes! Oh, I’m _so_ hot! And now I suppose my nose will get red!" The Atom, wise beyond her years, found the shoe in a hat box, and they sallied forth. "Thank goodness, we’re not needing hats and things," sighed Nell, "or we’d never start at all!" "_Nell_," on the next-door doorstep came an agonised whisper from Molly, "I’ve forgotten my waist belt!" In the drawing-room Sheila Pat ensconced herself behind a table, and kept a wary eye on Stewart. Presently his mother sent him across to her. He came and stood in front of her; the Atom gazed over his head. Nell caught her eye and frowned meaningly. "Sure, thin, haven’t you a tongue at all?" Sheila Pat obediently opened the conversation. "Y-yes." "Why aren’t ye usin’ it, thin?" "I—I—don’t know." "Well!" said Sheila Pat. The boy’s fair little face flushed scarlet. "I—I’ve got a rabbit!" he burst out desperately. "Um! what colour is it?" "Fawn and white. Come and look at him." Sheila Pat hesitated. Longing to see the rabbit fought with disinclination to be alone with Stewart. "If you’ll promise not to talk goody, I’ll come," she said cautiously. Suddenly he changed; he turned on her a small, passionate face. "I don’t want you—you little beast!" Sheila Pat gasped, and grew slowly red. "You are very rude," she said with tremulous dignity. "I don’t care if I am! D’you think you’re the queen or what? _I_ don’t want to speak to you. I can’t bear you!" He limped away to the other end of the room. Sheila Pat sat very still and quiet for a while, then she rose and went after him. "I think, perhaps, I wasn’t _very_ perlite," she said stiffly. "Come and see my rabbit," he rejoined. Sheila Pat went with alacrity; she was reflecting satisfiedly that the goody-goo little boy of her imaginings would never have called her "a little beast." Still she was not completely reassured. Together they examined the rabbit, and the Atom told him all about her Pearl, and nothing "goody-gooish" appeared about him. But as they went back to the house for tea, she sounded him cautiously. "Are you fond of cricket?" keeping a stern eye on his face while she awaited his answer. He hesitated. "No," he said. "_I knew it!_" "Awful clever of you!" he muttered sarcastically. "I s’pose," she went on as they reached the door, "you’d sooner be at your Catchykism now than cricket?" "Yes," he said.