Mr Chester pushed the girl aside, and put on a frown of portentous ferocity to conceal the delight with which her demonstration had, in reality, filled him. He loved to feel the sweep of the crisp locks, the touch of the soft cheek; he even appreciated, if the truth must be told, being addressed as a "precious," but wild horses would not have induced him to confess as much, and he made haste to leave the room with Harold lest perchance any sign of his real feelings might betray themselves to the sharp feminine eye. Left alone with her mother, Rhoda clasped her hands behind her back, and paced slowly up and down. It was a relief, after all, to be rid of the men, and be able to talk things over with a feminine hearer who never brought forward inconvenient quibbles, who accepted statements as facts, as of course they were, and agreed to propositions in a quiet, reasonable manner. Rhoda thought out several important matters in that march to and fro, and announced the result in a decisive manner. "I must have a complete new outfit! I don't believe in taking half-worn things. You can send them away to that poor clergyman in Ireland, with the five daughters. Geraldine, isn't it, who `fits' my clothes? Well, Geraldine shall have my blue silk, and the fawn jacket, and the blouses, and the grey dress. If the arm-holes stick into her as much as they do into me, she will wish I had never been invented. She can have my best hat, too, if she wants it. I hate it, and at `Hurst' you never wear anything but sailors', with the school colours. There is a blue house, and a pink, and a green, and a yellow, and a red; that's the way they arrange in all big schools, and I only hope and pray it won't be my fate to be yellow, or _what_ an image I'll look! Other things being equal, Mum dear, kindly say you think the blue house would be best for my health and morals. I want to live _in_, you understand, not _out_-- that's one point I have quite decided." "In what, dearest? Out of what? I don't understand what you mean." "In school itself. There are three houses in the school building and three in the grounds, and, of course, if you live `out' you have ten minutes' walk over to classes, whatever the weather may be. I should object to shivering across the first thing in the morning in rain and snow and getting all splashed and blown. No one can call me a coddle, but I _do_ like comfort, and it would be a dreadful fag--" "I should think so, indeed; most risky! I wouldn't hear of it for you. If you go at all you must live in, and have a comfortable room, with a fire in cold weather."