The Jolliest School of All | Page 2

never, never, never to see St. Osmund's College in all my life again. I'd ask her to wave her magic wand and transport me over the sea."
Irene spoke hotly, flinging books about with scant regard for their covers. Her slim hands were dusty, and her short, yellow hair as ruffled as her temper. There was even a suspicion of moisture about the corners of her gray eyes. She rubbed them surreptitiously with a ball of a handkerchief when her head happened to be inside the cupboard. She did not wish Vincent to witness this phase of her emotions.
"Every girl ought to be provided with a decent fairy godmother," she gulped. "If mine did her duty she'd come to rescue me now. Yes, she would, and be quick about it too!"
How very seldom in the course of an ordinary life such wishes are granted! Not once surely in a million times! Yet at that identical moment, almost as if in direct answer to her daughter's vigorous tirade, Mrs. Beverley entered the room. There was a sparkle of excitement in her eyes, and her whole atmosphere seemed to radiate news. She ran in as joyously as a girl, clapping her hands and evidently brimming over with something she was about to communicate.
"Why, Mums! Mums--darling! What's the matter?" asked Irene. "You look as if you'd had a fortune left you. Tell us at once."
"Not quite a fortune, but next best to it," said Mrs. Beverley, sitting down on the end of the sofa. "Daddy says I may tell you now, bairns. It has all happened so suddenly, and has been arranged in a rush. You remember Dad mentioning a few weeks ago that Mr. Southern, the firm's representative in Naples, was very ill? Well, Mr. Fenton has decided to send Dad to Italy to take his place, for a year at any rate, and perhaps longer. We're to start in a fortnight."
Such a stupendous announcement required a little realizing. Vincent removed his hands from his pockets.
"You don't mean to say we're all going?" he inquired. "Jemima! Leaving London fogs and toddling off to Italy? Materkins, you take my breath away! How's the whole business to be fixed up so soon?"
"Quite easily. We shall let this house, just as it is, to Mr. Atherton, who will come from the Norfolk branch to fill Father's post in London. We are to rent Mr. Southern's flat in Naples, while he takes a voyage round the world to try to regain his health. Dad means to put you into his office in Naples, Vin. Don't look so aghast! It's high time you started, and it will be a splendid opening for you. And as for Renie--of course she's too young to leave school yet----"
"Mums! Mums!" interrupted an agonized voice, as Irene took a flying leap over her circle of books and, plumping herself on the sofa, clutched tightly at her mother's sleeve. "You're not going to leave me behind at Miss Gordon's? You couldn't! Oh, I'd die! Mums darling, please! If the family's going to jaunt abroad I've got to jaunt too! Say yes, quick, quick!"
"What a little tempest you are! Cheer up! We'd never any intention of deserting you. We'll stick together for a while at any rate, though when we arrive in Naples you'll be packed off to a boarding-school, Madam, so I give you fair warning."
"An Italian school?"
Irene's gray eyes were round with horror.
"No, an Anglo-American school for English-speaking girls. Do you remember that charming Mr. Proctor who stayed with us last year on his way from New York to Naples? His daughter is at this school, and he strongly recommended it. It seems just exactly the place for you, Renie. It will solve a great problem if we can educate you out there. It would have complicated matters very much if we had been obliged to leave you in England. As it is you'll be quite near to Naples, and can come home for all your holidays."
"Hooray! Then I'm not to go to Miss Gordon's again?"
"As we start in a fortnight it's not worth while your beginning a fresh term at St. Osmund's."
"Then I needn't bother to find the hateful old history book. I'm so glad I didn't do those wretched holiday tasks--they'd just have been sheer waste. Mums, I'm so excited! May I begin and pack for Italy now? I can't wait."
For the next two weeks great confusion reigned in the Beverley household. It is no light matter to decide what you need to take abroad, what you wish to lock up at home, and to leave your establishment in apple-pie order for the use of strangers. Inventories of furniture, linen, blankets, and china had to be written and checked, a rigorous selection made of the things to be packed, and the