A College Girl | Page 9

that our happy party should be disturbed, but he never shirks a disagreeable duty himself, and he expects his children to follow his example."
Lavender instantly burst into tears.
"It's always the way--always the way! It was too good to be true. We might have known that it was. She'll choose me, and Hannah will go without me. We'd planned every day--fishing, and bathing, and making hay, and I shall be mewed up in a close carriage, and have meals of nuts--and n-n-nobody to talk to. Oh, I can't--I can't bear it! I wish I could die and be buried--I cannot bear it--"
"You won't have to bear it. She'll choose me. I'm the eldest, and the most of a companion." Clemence spoke with the calmness of despair, her plump cheeks whitening visibly, her pale eyes showing a flush of red around the lids. "Of course, if it's my duty, I must go--but I'd as soon be sent to prison! I'm feeling very tired, and thought the holiday would set me up. Now, of course, I shall be worse. Eight weeks alone with Aunt Maria would try anybody's nerves. I shall be a wreck all winter, and have neuralgia till I'm nearly mad."
"Nonsense, darling! If you are so tired, the rest and quiet of The Towers will be just what you need; and as we don't know yet which one of you Aunt Maria will wish as a companion, it is a pity for you all to make yourselves miserable at once. Why not try to forget, and hope for the best! Surely that would be the wiser plan."
The three girls looked at each other in eloquent silence. Easy to talk. Forget, indeed. As if they could! Mother didn't really believe what she said. She was making the best of it, and there were occasions when making the best of it seemed just the most aggravating thing one could do.
It was a relief to the girls when Mrs Garnett was summoned from the room on household business, and they were left to themselves. A craving for sympathy was the predominant sensation, and prompted the suggestion, "Let's wire to the Vernons," which was followed by a stampede upstairs. The telegraph was a sufficiently new institution to appear a pleasure rather than a toil, even though a message thus dispatched was an infinitely longer and more laborious effort than a run round the terrace, so to-day a leaf was torn from the note-book, a dramatic announcement penned and placed in the hanging-bag, with its jingling bell of warning, and the three girls took it in turns to pull at the cord till the missive arrived at its destination. Attracted by the sound of the bell, Vi and plain Hannah stood at the window awaiting the communication, read over its contents, and stood silent and dismayed. The Garnetts, watching from afar, realised the dramatic nature of that pause, and thrilled in sympathy.
"One of us is going to be sent to prison instead of to the country!"
"Prison!" Vi and plain Hannah wagged their heads over the cipher, hesitated long, pencil in hand, and, finally, in a frenzy of impatience, which refused to be curbed even by loyalty to the telegraph itself, dispatched an urgent summons to speech--
"Come round and talk!"
The Garnetts flew. The Vernons, waiting upon the doorstep, escorted them upstairs to the scantily furnished room which had first been a nursery, then promoted to playroom, and, ultimately, when the more juvenile name wounded the susceptibilities of its inmates, had become definitely and proudly "the study." The bureau in the corner was Dan's special property, and might not be touched by so much as a finger-tip. The oak table with three sound legs and a halting fourth, supported by an ancient volume of Good Words, was Vi's property; John and plain Hannah shared the dining-table, covered with the shabby green baize cloth, which stood in the centre of the room. There were a variety of uncomfortable chairs, an ink-splashed drugget, and red walls covered with pictures which had been banished from other rooms as they acquired the requisite stage of decrepitude and grime.
The five girls surged into the room, faced each other, and burst into eager speech--
"Who's going to prison?"
"We don't know. Wish we did!"
"What do you mean by prison?"
"Aunt Maria's!"
"Lady Maria's?"
"Lady Maria's! One of us has to go and stay with her for eight weeks instead of going with you to the sea."
Vi Vernon collapsed on to the nearest chair, and gasped for breath. "Stu-pendous!" she murmured beneath her breath. Vi had a new word each season which she used to describe every situation, good and bad. The season before it had been "Weird!" this season it was "Stupendous," and she was thankful for the extra syllable in this moment of emotion. "It's really true? You