The Percival girls looked at each other and smiled.

“Poor old Ralph! Isn’t she blighting? You don’t know anything about him, you know. It’s only because he called you a frump, but never mind, he has to be back to tea to look after some work for father, and then he’ll see! If you are going to be friends with us, you mustn’t begin by disliking our brother. He may be conceited, but he is certainly not ‘shaggy,’ and he is much nicer to his sisters than most big boys. He thinks we are really nicer than other girls.”

Darsie regarded them critically.

“Well, I think you are!” she conceded graciously. “Oh, how thankful I am that there is some one young in the neighbourhood. I was beginning to feel so painfully middle-aged. Let’s sit down and talk. Tell me about yourselves. Do you go to school? Which school? Do you go in for exams? What subjects do you like best?”

Noreen laughed, and shook her head.

“We have a governess. We are going for a year to a finishing school in Paris, but mother doesn’t approve of exams, for girls. She wants us to be able to play, and sing, and draw, and speak German and French, and she says that’s enough. We don’t bother about Latin or mathematics or any of those dull old things.”

“They are not dull. They’re glorious. I revel in them. But you’re rich, of course, and won’t have to work. I shall have to earn money myself, so I want to pass all the exams. I can.”

The Percivals stared in solemn surprise. The idea was so strange it took some time to digest. All their friends were well off like themselves; really, when they came to think of it, they had never met a prospective working girl before! They regarded Darsie with a curiosity tinged with compassion.

“Do you mean it—really? Tell us about yourself? Where do you live?”

“In Birchester, Craven Street, Sandon terrace—the corner house in Sandon Terrace.”

“Craven Street. Really!” The girls were plainly shocked, but Ida rallied bravely, and said in her most courteous air: “It must be so interesting to live in a street! So much to see. And have you very interesting people living across the road?”

“No. Rather dull. Husbands and wives, and one old bachelor with a leg—lame leg, I mean. No one at all thrilling, but our friends—our best friends—live in a terrace at right 

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