Beechcroft at Rockstone

of the two, and began rather awkwardly and reluctantly-

'Miss Mohun thought you would like to hear this. It is a sort of German fairy tale.'

Lilian said, 'Yes, Miss Merrifield' in a short dry tone, completing Gillian's distaste, and she began to read, not quite at her best, and was heartily glad when at the end of half an hour Mrs. Giles was heard in parley with another visitor, so that she had an excuse for going away without attempting conversation. She was overtaken by the children on their way home from their schools, where they had dined. They rushed upon her, together with the two Varleys, who wanted to take them home to tea; and Gillian giving her ready consent, Fergus dashed home to fetch his beloved humming-top, which was to be introduced to Clement Varley's pump, and in a few minutes they were off, hardly vouchsafing an answer to such comparatively trifling inquiries as how they were placed at their schools.

Gillian found, however, that neither of her aunts was pleased at her having consented to the children's going out without reference to their authority. How did she suppose they were to come home?

'I did not think, can't they be fetched?' said Gillian, startled.

'It is not far,' said Adeline, pitying her. 'One of the maids-'

'My dear Ada!' exclaimed Aunt Jane. 'You know that Fanny cannot go out at night with her throat, and I never will send out those young girls on any account.'

'Can't I go?' said Gillian desperately.

'Are not you a young girl? I must go myself.'

And go she did at a quarter to eight, and brought home the children, looking much injured. Gillian went upstairs with them, and there was an outburst.

'It was horrid to be fetched home so soon, just as there was a chance of something nice; when all the tiresome big ones had gone to dress, and we could have had some real fun,' said Valetta.

'Real fun! Real sense!' said Fergus.

'But what had you been about all this time?'

'Why, their sisters and a man that was there would come and drink tea in the nursery, where nobody wanted them, and make us play their play.

'Wasn't that nice? You are always crying out for Harry and me to come and play with you.'

'Oh, it wasn't like that,' said Val, 'you play with us, and they only pretended, and played with each other. It wasn't nice.'

'Clem said it was-forking,' said Fergus.

'No, spooning,' said Val. 'The dish ran after the spoon, you know.'

'Well, but you haven't told me about the schools,' said Gillian, in elder sisterly propriety, thinking the subject had better be abandoned.

'Jolly, jolly, scrumptious!' cried Fergus.

'Oh! Fergus, mamma doesn't like slang words. Jasper doesn't say them.'

'Not at home, but men say what they like at school, and the 'bus was scrumptious and splendiferous!'

'I'm sure it wasn't,' said Valetta; 'I can't bear being boxed up with horrid rude boys.'

'Because you are only a girl!'

'Now, Gill, they shot with-'

'Val, if you tell-'

'Telling Gill isn't telling. Is it, Gill?'

She assented.

'They did, Gill. They shot at us with pea-shooters,' sighed the girl.

'Oh! it was jolly, jolly, jolly!' cried the boy. 'Stebbing hit the girl who made the sour face on her cheeks, and they all squealed, and the cad looked in and tried to jaw us.'

'But that dreadful boy shot right into his mouth,' said Val, while Fergus went into an ecstasy of laughter. 'Wasn't it a shame, Gill?'

'Indeed it was' said Gillian. 'Such ungentlemanly boys ought not to be allowed in the omnibus.'

'Girls shouldn't be allowed in the 'bus, they are so stupid,' said Fergus. 'That one-as cross as old Halfpenny-who was she, Val?'

'Emma Norton! Up in the highest form!'

'Well, she is a prig, and a tell-tale-tit besides; only Stebbing said if she did, her junior would catch it.'

'What a dreadful bully he must be!' exclaimed Gillian.

I'll tell you what,' said Fergus, in a tone of profound admiration, 'no one can hold a candle to him at batting! He snowballed all the Kennel choir into fits, and he can brosier old Tilly's stall, and go on just the same.'

'What a greedy boy!' exclaimed Val.

'Disgusting,' added Gillian.

'You're girls,' responded Fergus, lengthening the syllable with infinite contempt; but Valetta had spirit enough to reply, 'Much better be a girl than rude and greedy.'

'Exactly,' said Gillian; 'it is only little silly boys who think such things fine. Claude doesn't, nor Harry, nor Japs.'

'You know nothing about it,' said Fergus.

'Well, but you've never told me about school-how you are placed, and whom you are under.'

'Oh! I'm in middle form, under Miss Edgar. Disgusting! It's only the third form that go up to Smiler. She knows it is no use to try to take Stebbing and Burfield.'

'And, Gill,' added Val, 'I'm in second class too, and I took three places for knowing where Teheran was, and got above Kitty Varley and a girl there two years older than I am, and her name is Maura.'

'Maura, how very odd! I never heard of any one called Maura but one of the Whites,' said Gillian. 'What was her surname?'

This Valetta could not tell, and at the moment Mrs. Mount came up with intent to brush Miss Valetta's hair, and to expedite the going to bed.

Gillian, not very happy about the revelations she had heard, went downstairs, and found her younger aunt alone, Miss Mohun having been summoned to a conference with one of her clients in the parish room. In her absence Gillian always felt more free and communicative, and she had soon told whatever she did not feel as a sort of confidence, including Valetta's derivation of spooning, and when Miss Mohun returned it was repeated to her.

'Yes,' was her comment, 'children's play is a convenient cover to the present form of flirtation. No doubt Bee Varley and Mr. Marlowe believe themselves to have been most good-natured.'

'Who is he, and will it come to anything?' asked Aunt Ada, taking her sister's information for granted.

'Oh no, it is nothing. A civil service man, second cousin's brother- in-law's stepson. That's quite enough in these days to justify fraternal romping.'

'I thought Beatrice Varley a nice girl.'

'So she is, my dear. It is only the spirit of the age, and, after all, this deponent saith not which was the dish and which was the spoon. Have the children made any other acquaintances, I wonder? And how did George Stebbing comport himself in the omnibus? I was sorry to see him there; I don't trust that boy.'

'I wonder they didn't send him in solitary grandeur in the brougham,' said Miss Ada.

Gillian held the history of the pea-shooting as a confidence, even though Aunt Jane seemed to have been able to see through the omnibus, so she contented herself with asking who George Stebbing was.

'The son of the manager of the marble works; partner, I believe.'

'Yes,' said Aunt Ada. 'the Co. means Stebbing primarily.'

'Is he a gentleman?'

'Well, as much as old Mr. White himself, I suppose. He is come up here-more's the pity-to the aristocratic quarter, if you please,' said Aunt Jane, smiling, 'and if garden parties are not over, Mr. Stebbing may show you what they can be.'

'That boy ought to be at a public school,' said her sister. 'I hope he doesn't bully poor little Fergus.'

'I don't think he does,' said Gillian. 'Fergus seemed rather to admire him.'

'I had rather hear of bullying than patronage in that quarter,' said Miss Mohun. 'But, Gillian, we must impress on the children that they are to go to no one's house without express leave. That will avoid offence, and I should prefer their enjoying the society of even the Varleys in this house.'