Penelope put on her hat, seized the first book she could find, and went out into the open air. The grounds still bore traces of yesterday's revels. There was the wood--dark, cool, and beautiful--which had been used for that scene in which she took so distinguished a part. Penelope's first desire was to get within the shade of the wood; but then she remembered how many things had happened there; how it was there that she had made terms with the girls with regard to the conditions on which she would act Helen of Troy. It was there, too, that Honora Beverley had found her when the play was over--when she was feeling so wrought up, so desolate, and, somehow, so ashamed of herself. She did not want to go into the wood. She walked, therefore, down one of the sunny garden paths, and at last came to a grassy sward with a huge elm-tree in the middle. There was shade under the elm. She eat down on the grass and opened her book. But she was not inclined to read. Penelope was never a reader. She had no special nor strong tastes. She could have been made a very nice, all-round sort of girl; her brain could have been well developed, but she would never be a genius or a specialist of any sort. Nevertheless, she had one thing which some of those girls who despised her did not possess; that was, a real, vibrating, suffering, longing, and passionate soul. She longed intensely for love, and she would rather be good than bad--that was about all. She sat with her book open and her eyes fixed on the flickering sunlight and shade of the lawn just in front of her. After all she, Penelope, would have a good time--just like the other girls. She would come back to school able, like the other girls, to talk of her holidays, to describe where she went and what companions she found and what friends she made; to talk as the others talked of this delightful day and that delightful day. Oh, yes--she would have a good time! She pressed her hand to her eyes and her eyelids smarted with tears. It had been a very long time since Penelope had cried. Now, notwithstanding her sudden and unlooked-for bliss, there was a pain within her breast. She was terribly--most terribly disappointed in Brenda. She had not seen Brenda for a long time, and she had always rather worshipped her sister. When a little child, she had thoroughly revelled in Brenda's beauty. When the time came that she and Brenda must part, little Penelope had sobbed hard in her elder sister's arms--had implored and implored her not to leave her, and afterwards, when the separation had taken place, had been sullen and truly miserable for a long time.