"Oh yes," replied Mabel; "but I only wish I were in her shoes. Oh, I know, of course, Annie, it is jolly here, and Mrs Lyttelton is a darling; but I want to get into the big world I shall be eighteen in a month, and it seems absurd to keep any girl at school after that age. Aunt Henrietta is in Paris, too, and is going, I believe, to one of the German spas by-and-by for gout treatment. Aunt Henrietta spends the entire year in a round of gaieties. I'd just give the world to join her." "And why don't you?" asked Annie. "A great many girls leave school at eighteen." "She seems determined that I shall stay on for at least another year. It is quite nonsense. She seems to think I am _not_ clever enough to leave school." "Well, you are not specially brilliant, are you, dear Lushie?" asked Annie in that soft little voice of hers, which could nevertheless be intensely aggravating. "Now, for instance, prize day is close at hand-- the day after to-morrow, no less--and what prize is the fair Mabel likely to carry off?" "I don't care twopence for prizes," was Mabel's reply; "and I don't specially want to be clever, if I can be beautiful. You think I am beautiful, don't you, Annie?" "Oh, my dear, of course there is no denying that," said Annie. She looked up with admiration at her friend, and Mabel at that moment, with an added colour in her cheeks and displaying all the charm of her lovely figure, seemed to justify the remark. "Why don't you read your letter?" said Annie. "Oh, it is only from Aunt Henrietta, and she does worry me so by the sort of lecturing tone she has taken up of late. She is a dear, good old thing--not so very old, either--at least she doesn't think so; but when I know how she fritters her time and just lives for pleasure, and pleasure only, it is aggravating to be told that I must be earnest and embrace my opportunities, and endeavour to become really well informed; and that, of course, I must on no account hurry from school, for school-time is the best time; and all that sort of nonsense. You understand, don't you, Annie?" "Yes," said Annie in a low voice, and with a sigh, "I quite understand. I have had a great deal of that myself. Uncle Horace lectures me awfully. I hate being lectured. Don't you?" "Loathe and detest it," said Mabel. "My plan," said Annie, "is to shut my ears; then the lectures don't seem to matter much. Do you know how to manage that?" "I am sure I don't," said Mabel. "Being possessed of good hearing, I have to listen to words when they are addressed to me, however annoying they may happen to be."