"I can hardly wait until Monday morning. I am so longing to know how you are faring!" Rhoda read these words, and looked slowly down upon her own letter. Well! it would arrive, and the butler would place it on the breakfast-table, and her mother would come hurrying into the room, and seize it with a little cry of joy. She would read it over, and then--then she would hand it to her husband, and take out her handkerchief and begin to cry. Mr Chester would pooh-pooh her distress, but she would cry quietly behind the urn, and despite his affectation of indifference he, also, would look worried and troubled; while Harold would declare that every one must go through the same stage before settling down, and that Rhoda might be expected to "make a fuss." She had been so spoiled at home! Rhoda dug her pen into the blotting-paper, and frowned uneasily. Five days' experience at school had impressed her with the feebleness of "making a fuss." "If you are hurt--bear it! If you are teased--look pleasant! If you are blamed--do better next time! If you feel blue--perk up, and don't be a baby!" Such were the Spartan rules of the new life, and an unaccustomed shame rose up in her mind at the realisation of the selfishness and weak betrayal of that first home letter. Was it not possible to represent the truth from the bright side as well as the dark, to dwell on the kindnesses she had received, and leave disagreeables untold? Yes, it _was_ possible; she would do so, and save her dear ones the pain of grieving for her unhappiness. So the thick sheets were torn across with a wrench, which made Thomasina look up from her desk. As a head girl, "Tom" possessed a study of her own, to which she had prepared to depart earlier in the afternoon, but had been persuaded to stay by the entreaties of her companions. "Tom, don't go! Don't leave us! It's a wet day, and so dull--do stay with us till tea-time. You might! You might!" urged the suppliant voices, and so Tom sat down to her desk in the house-parlour which was the property of the elder Blues, and indited letters on blue-lined, manly paper, with a manly quill pen.