They laughed again and then were silent. Mollie looked round at the little group and thought how easy it was to be good when one had nice things to do and plenty of time and room to do them in. "Where is Miss Hilton?" she asked, "and where is Laddie? And why aren't you at school this time? How do you ever learn enough to pass your exams?" "Miss Hilton is housekeeper while Mamma is away," Prudence answered, "and she hasn't much time for lessons. Laddie is dead. He was poisoned. We couldn't bear to have another dog. Papa doesn't like exams. He likes us to be out all the time and not to stoop over books. He says we can 'find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything'." Mollie gave a little jump. The very words Aunt Mary had quoted that morning! There was certainly _something_ queer somewhere! "What a jolly kind of father to have," Dick exclaimed. "I wish my good parent held these views. His are quite otherwise. He believes in any amount of stooping over books, though I am always pointing out to him that it isn't the chaps who swot over books that turn into Generals and things in the end." "When Mamma comes home Grizzel and I are going to school." Prudence said regretfully. "I know we shall hate it, but I suppose we must learn grammar and geography some time." She sighed at the distressing prospect before her. Mollie smiled as she wondered what school would make of Grizzel. She looked at Hugh, absorbed in some great new idea. What would he be like in forty years. In Chauncery Time he must now be fifty-four. Were there then _two_ Hughs? And if two, why not twenty? Or hundreds, for that matter, like the films of a cinematograph. Perhaps everyone had a sort of film-picture running off all the time, and some day, before those million years had passed, a way would be found to develop them. It would not be much more wonderful than wireless and flying and all those things that looked impossible to people in this Time. Mollie began to think of London, and of home in North Kensington, and then felt a sudden longing for her mother and Jean and the little ones--for all the familiar ways of home and school. This place was lovely, and the children were perfect dears, but it would be nice to feel a hockey-stick in her hand again--and she _should_ like to see her own comfortable mother. In fact, she felt homesick! "A balloon is all very well," Hugh said, "so far as it goes." He rolled round on to his back, clasping his hands under his head and staring up at the white clouds over which he had flown yesterday. "But it doesn't go far _enough_. It will never be much use until we learn to steer. You have to go whichever way the wind chooses, which may be exactly the way you don't want to go. I can't see myself how one could ever steer without machinery, and to carry that weight you'd have to have a balloon the size of a mountain." "There's wings," said Prudence, "like Hiram Brown."