The Fortunes of Philippa

The Fortunes of
Philippa

A School Story



BY



ANGELA BRAZIL

Author of "The Luckiest Girl in the School" "The Jolliest Term on Record"
"For the Sake of the School" &c. &c.



BLACKIE AND SON LIMITED
LONDON GLASGOW AND BOMBAY

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE FORTUNES OF PHILIPPA

CHAPTER I

MY SOUTHERN HOME

"I can do the fifth proposition in Euclid," I objected, "and the Latin Grammar as far as irregular verbs."

My father shook his head.

"That might help you a little if you were a boy in a public school, but it's not all that your mother would have wished. You've not been taught a note of music, you can't speak French or dance a quadrille, and if it came to a question of fine sewing, I'm afraid you'd scarcely know which was the right end of your needle!"

The list of my deficiencies was so dreadfully true that I had no excuse to bring forward, and my father continued.

"Besides, it's absurd to attempt to educate you in this out-of-the-way spot, where you've no opportunity of mixing with cultured people. I wish you to see England, and learn English ways, and to have companions of your own age."

"I think San Carlos is the most beautiful place in the world," I said quickly. "And I don't want any companion but you."

"Which shows me all the more that it's time I sent you away," answered Father. "Though it will strain my heart-strings to part with you, I own. It's such a splendid opportunity, too, when Madame Montpellier is returning to Paris and will take charge of you on the voyage. No, Philippa child, I've quite made up my mind. You're to go to England, and you'll please me best by taking it bravely, and trying to learn all you can in the years we must be apart from each other."

We were sitting on the vine-covered terrace of our beautiful South American home. Below us the bright flowers of our tropical garden shone a blaze of colour against the dark background of the lemon-trees; away to the right stretched the dazzling blue sea, with here and there the dark sail of a native fishing craft; while to the left rose the white houses of the little Spanish town of San Carlos, with its picturesque, Moorish-looking church and campanile, set in a frame of tall palm-trees, which led the eye over the long slopes of the coffee-plantations up the hill-side to where the sharp peaks of the sierras towered like giants against the cloudless sky.

For ten years I had lived here as in paradise, and the thought that I must leave it, and go far away over the sea to strangers and to an unknown land, filled me with dismay.

As an only child, and a motherless one, I suppose I had been spoilt, though to be very dearly loved does not always necessarily mean to be over-indulged. I am sure my father spent many anxious hours over my upbringing, and with him I was accustomed to prompt obedience, though I fear I ruled Juanita, my mulatto nurse, and Tasso, the black bearer, with a rod of iron. Friends of my own age and station I had none; my father was all in all to me, and in his constant companionship I had grown up a somewhat old-fashioned child, learning a few desultory lessons, reading every story-book upon which I could lay my hands, and living in a make-believe world of my own, as different from the actual realities of life as could well be imagined.

It was indeed time for a change, though the transplanting process might be hard to bear. I think many urgent letters from relations in England had helped to form my father's decision, and, his mind once made up, he hurried on the preparations for my journey, in a kind of nervous anxiety lest he should repent, and refuse to part with me after all.

"I suppose your aunt will find your clothes all right," he said, as he watched Juanita pack my cabin trunk. "I've told her to rig you out afresh if she doesn't. We don't go in for Paris modes at San Carlos, so I'm afraid you will hardly be in the latest fashion! You must be a good girl, and do as you're told. You'll find everything rather different over there, but you'll soon get used to it, and be happy, I hope; though what I'm to do without you here I don't know," he added wistfully. "You're all I've got now!"

And he looked out over the blue waters of the bay to that little plot under the shade of the campanile where my pretty mother lay sleeping so quietly.

I understood him, and it added a fresh pang to my sorrow. Child as I was, I felt I had in some measure helped to fill that vacant place, and the thought that I must leave him so lonely, so very lonely, seemed sometimes to make the parting almost harder than I could bear. I tried my best, however, to be bright and brave for his sake, and I made up my mind that I would do my very utmost to learn all he wished, so that perhaps I might get through the work in quicker time than he expected, and be able to return to him the sooner.

The grief of the coloured portion of our household at the news of my departure was both noisy and vehement. Juanita dropped copious tears into my boxes; José, the garden-boy, assured me that England was situated in the midst of a frozen sea, where your fingers fell off with the cold, and you chopped up your breakfast with a hatchet; Pedro, the cook, was doubtful if I should survive a course of English dishes, which he heard were composed chiefly of beef and plum-pudding, while salads and sauces were unknown; and Tasso, after a vain appeal to be allowed to accompany me, drew such appalling pictures of the perils of the seas, that I wondered how even his devotion could have induced him to think of venturing on shipboard. Of all the many friends whom I left behind, I think the one I regretted the most was Tasso. My earliest recollection is that of clinging to his stout black forefinger to toddle down the flagged pathway between the orange-trees which led to the terrace that over-looked the sea. Carried on his broad shoulders, I had made my first acquaintance with the streets of San Carlos. There one might see the funny washerwomen standing like ducks in the river to beat their clothes upon the stones, the long-eared mules with their gay trappings coming down from the mountains laden with bags of coffee-berries, the solemn Indian muleteers with their dark cloaks and fringed leggings, the little black children dancing and singing in the bright sunshine, the open-air restaurants where men of all nations sat chatting, smoking cigarettes, and drinking "eau sucrée" under the palm-trees, or the fashionable carriages of the smart Spanish ladies and gentlemen who thronged the Corso in the late afternoon.

Negro servants, having much of the child in their nature, are wonderfully patient with little children. Tasso humoured me and amused me with untiring zeal, telling me wonderful stories of African magic, singing me long ballads in the half-Spanish half-Indian dialect of the district, catching for me butterflies, green lizards, or the brilliant little humming-birds which flitted about our garden, or picking shells for me upon the beach below.

It was on this shore, just under the windows of our house, that I was once the heroine of a very real adventure, which had almost cost me my life. I think at the time I could not have been more than four years old, but it made such a deep impression on my mind that I can remember every detail as clearly as though it had happened only yesterday. I had been taken by Juanita to play in the cool of the evening on the little strip of silver sand and shingle which lay between our high garden wall and the dashing surf. I had left my doll's cape on the terrace, and I begged Juanita to go and fetch it. For a long time she refused, but on my promising not to stir from the spot where I was playing, she was at last persuaded, and hurried up the steep flight of steps on to the verandah. It had been an intensely hot day, and I was tired, so I thought I would sit down and rest until Juanita returned. Looking round I saw, as I imagined, a nice smooth round stone close by, upon which I settled myself very comfortably, curling my little fat legs under me. But the stone must surely have been an enchanted rock out of one of Tasso's fairy stories, for it suddenly began to move, and, rising up, it put out four flat feet, and marched briskly down the beach towards the sea. The entire unexpectedness of it so utterly terrified me that I could neither cry nor move, only hold on tight with both hands, and wonder what black magic had seized upon me. The turtle, for such in reality my stone proved to be, rapidly gained the water, and it was about to paddle off in a hurry with its strange burden, when Juanita, returning on to the verandah, saw my desperate plight, and by her frantic screams brought Tasso, who dashed down the steps and into the sea, just in time to rescue me before the turtle took a dive into the deeper water.

I do not think Tasso ever quite forgave poor Juanita for this accident, though she beat her breast and lamented in a perfect hail-storm of southern grief. And always after this he would keep an eye upon me when I was in her charge, appearing mysteriously from behind trees, popping his dark head through windows, or peering between the vines of the pergola; coming so suddenly and unexpectedly upon us, that I began to think he had the gift of some of his magic heroes, and could make himself visible and invisible at pleasure.

I like to recall those happy days of my early childhood; days when the sun always shone, and the air was full of the scent of orange-blossom, and my father and I lived a life apart among the flowers in the old terraced garden, where the hum of the little town and the roll of the surf below seemed but a distant echo of the world beyond.

In the summer-time, when the heat at San Carlos grew unbearable, we moved up into the hills, on the verge of the great forests. It was cooler there, for the wind blew fresh from the snow-capped sierras, and I could run to my heart's content along the narrow paths of our coffee-plantations, or chase Juanita between the cinnamon-trees. Sometimes, as a special treat, my father would take me in front of him on his horse, and ride into the forest. I can remember yet the thrill of those expeditions into that tropical fairyland. The tall trees stretched before our path in a never-ending vista, festooned by gigantic creepers covered with flowers; funny little chattering monkeys looked down from the branches, and scolded us as we passed; gorgeous green parrots rent the air with their screams; while tiny humming-birds and innumerable brilliant insects luxuriated in the wealth of plant life. Sometimes we would see the giant spiders which spin webs so strong that they will often knock an unwary rider's hat from his head; or sometimes a puma or a jaguar would slink away through the dense undergrowth, and I would cling a little closer to my father's arm, and think what would happen to me if I ventured alone into the forest. Of San Carlos and its inhabitants I saw little; though my father was the British Consul, he did not move in the society of the place more than was absolutely necessary, nor, for good reasons of his own, did he wish me to become very friendly with the children of his Spanish neighbours. I rarely, if ever, visited any of the white villas that dotted the hill-sides, and the pretty little dark-eyed Juans or Margaritas who sometimes peeped over the cactus hedges were strangers to me.

On one day only in the year did my father relax his rule. He would allow me to accept an invitation to watch the Carnival from the verandah of the Government House. How immensely I looked forward to those occasions! Juanita would proudly dress me in my best, and I would drive by Father's side down the Corso to the great white house, where we were welcomed by the Governor himself, and shown to a place of honour upon the balcony, where we could see everything that was passing in the street below.

It was a gay sight. First came the priests in their gorgeous vestments, carrying high the gilded images of the Saints; and behind them bands of sweet-faced children dressed as angels, in long white robes, with soft plumed wings fastened on to their shoulders. Carriages followed, garlanded with flowers, in which sat men and women who represented Greek gods, or nymphs, or famous characters from history, attended by tiny boys with gilt wings as Cupids. After these came a mob of masquers, jesters, clowns, harlequins, columbines, peasants of all nations, fishermen, hunters, Indians, or savages; shouting, gesticulating, pushing one another about, and all seeming to try to make as much noise as they possibly could. It was then that the fun began. Piled up in the balcony were baskets full of flowers, confetti, bon-bons, and tiny wax balls full of scented water. We flung these far and wide among the crowd below, some receiving the flowers and bon-bons, and some being hit by the wax balls, which, bursting, scented the victim rather too heavily for his enjoyment. It was all taken, however, with the greatest good-humour, and the merry throng passed on to parade round the town, and end with a dance under the palm-trees in the public gardens.

And so my life in my southern home had passed like a kind of delightful dream, and it was not until my father talked of change that I had ever thought there could be an awakening.

The little time left to me fled all too fast, and brought the much-dreaded day when I must leave everything that had grown so dear. I can never forget our parting. A hurried message had been sent to us that the steamer was to start earlier, and that I must go on board in the evening instead of on the following morning as had been at first arranged. The full moon shone on the waters of the bay, lighting up the vessel which was to take me so far away, and which had steamed out a little from the quay where the launch was waiting. Big girl as I was, my father carried me in his arms down the garden. I held my cheek pressed close against his, and we neither of us spoke, for there are some heart-breaks too great for words. The fireflies were flitting about like living jewels, every blossom looked clear-cut and perfect in the moonlight; I can smell even now the heavy scent of the orange-blossom as we went along the terrace walk, and hear the tremulous call of some night-bird among the mimosa-trees. It was but a short way to the quay, and we were soon in the launch, steaming out over the bay to where the lights of the great ship shone red against the pale moonlight.

"So this is the small passenger I'm waiting for!" said the captain, as my father helped me on deck. "Well, I'm sorry, but I can't allow elaborate leave-takings. We're beyond our time already, the tide's on the turn, and if we don't start at once we sha'n't be able to cross the bar. We've had our steam up since sunset."

"Good-bye, my darling, my darling!" said Father, as he held me close for one long, last kiss. "We shall meet again, God willing, before many years have passed away. Be a good girl, and whatever you do don't forget your poor old daddy, who will be thinking of you always, wherever you may be."

He put me into the friendly arms of Madame Montpellier, who was crying for sympathy, and ran down the companion-ladder as if he were afraid to look back. The little launch drew off, the great screw began to revolve slowly, and the ship started eastward in a train of silvery light, leaving my happy home behind, and taking me to a new and untried world, where my future was all before me.

CHAPTER II

MY COUSINS

I CAME to England with the swallows, and I think I felt as much a bird of passage as they; more so, indeed, for all the young swallows had been reared under northern skies and were but returning home, while I was as yet a stranger in a new land. My uncle met me at Liverpool, where I had a terrible parting from Madame Montpellier, who had been very good to me on the voyage, and who seemed my last link with the past; and we set out at once upon the long journey to London. I liked my uncle, he reminded me much of my father; there was a merry twinkle in his eye, and a kindliness in his voice which seemed to call for some response, so I made a desperate effort to check my flowing tears and take an interest in the various things he pointed out to me from the window of the railway-carriage. The green fields and hedgerows, the picturesque villages and churches, the smooth rivers and the quiet pastoral scenery as we steamed through the midlands were all new to my wondering eyes, but to watch them from the fast express, as they appeared to whizz rapidly by, made my head ache, and I had curled myself up in a corner and subsided comfortably to sleep long before London was reached.

I am afraid my arrival must have been a bitter disappointment to my little cousins, of whom the elder ones were waiting in the hall to welcome me when our cab drove up. I was so utterly weary with my journey, and I felt so forlornly shy at the sight of so many strange faces around me, that, forgetting both my manners and my good intentions, I burst into a flood of tears, and refused all comfort.

"Better put her to bed," said my aunt briskly; "she's tired out, and it's no use worrying her. After a thorough night's rest she'll be more ready to make friends with us."

I was so miserable that I did not much care what happened to me, so I submitted with a good grace to be undressed, and to swallow the hot milk which they brought me; then with my father's photograph clasped tightly in my hand, I cried myself to sleep on that my first night in my new home. Somehow with the morning sunshine life seemed to wear a different aspect, and instead of telling Aunt Agatha that I could never be happy in England, and begging her to send me straight back to San Carlos by the very next ship, as I had quite made up my mind to do the night before, I went downstairs to breakfast full of curiosity to make the acquaintance of my cousins. I had heard them for some time, as during the last hour the whole upper story of the house had seemed to be pervaded with the noise of small shrill voices, the stamping of feet, the slamming of doors, and finally the melancholy sound of the minor scales on the piano, the performer appearing to get into complications with the sharps and flats, and occasionally to relapse altogether into the major key.

Aunt Agatha came bustling into my bedroom as I fastened the last button of my dress (the voyage had taught me to dispense with Juanita's help), and she stood and surveyed me with a critical eye. Her first impression of me had been hardly a fair one, so I trust that this morning I presented a more favourable appearance.

"Yes," she said slowly, "you have your father's eyes, but otherwise you're the image of your mother: the same slight build, and the same light hair and colour which I remember so well in my poor sister-in-law. Dear me! how little I thought when I said good-bye to her that I should never see her again! You must try to make yourself at home, my dear, among us all. It's hard, I dare say, to settle down into new ways, but if you'll try your best, we will do our part, and I hope you'll soon like England as well as the country you've left behind. Now come with me, and say good-morning to your cousins."

There were so many of them, and of such various ages, that when I entered the nursery I might have supposed myself for the moment in an infant school. From Lucy, the eldest, who was six months older than I, to the baby in long clothes, they descended in a series of eight little steps, all blue-eyed and auburn-haired, all sturdy of limb and lusty of voice, and all dressed in stout brown holland pinafores, warranted to resist the hardest of wear and tear.

"I'm sure you'll soon become friends," said Aunt Agatha, after Lucy, Mary, Edgar, Donald, Frank, Cuthbert, Dorothy, and the baby had all been duly presented. "You're to have lessons in the school-room from Miss Masterman. I've spoken to her about your work. I believe your father mentioned that you hadn't yet begun either French or music. And, Blair, I should like you to go over her clothes after breakfast. I must arrange for Miss Jenkins to come at once for a few days' sewing. Be sure she drinks plenty of milk with her porridge, and be careful she doesn't get into draughts just at first, as she's accustomed to a warmer climate."

Blair was a power in the household. She managed her nursery with the tactics of a general, reducing small rebels to a state of submission with admirable skill, and keeping order among her noisy little crew with a firm though just hand. She might not always be exactly pleasant, but on the whole her moral atmosphere was like an east wind, bracing, though a little trying at times. She accepted an addition to her numerous charges with grim philosophy.

"You'll soon shake down among the others," she said to me, not unkindly. "It seems queer to you, I dare say, after living in a foreign country, with black servants and outlandish cookery, but there's everything in habit, and with plenty of lessons to keep you busy, you'll have no time to fret."

Just at first I certainly found the shaking-down process rather a rough one. It was all so utterly different from my old life. Accustomed to spend most of my time with my father, I thought it hard to be restricted to the nursery and school-room, and instead of being the centre of my little world, to be only one of a flock who were not favoured with many indulgences.

My aunt, I am sure, did her very best for me according to her lights, and perhaps she thought that I should settle all the sooner if I were left judiciously alone, but, looking back now upon her upbringing, I think she might have shown me more tenderness. She was a tall, handsome woman, with a capable manner, and what she called "sensible" views of life. If she had ever cherished any illusions, they had long ago worn down to the level of strict commonplace. Though she loved her children, in her practical, unsentimental way, they were to her always "the children", to be ruled and reared, clothed and educated, but never in any respect her companions; and a friendship between two people of widely differing ages, such as existed between my father and myself, was a thing she could scarcely understand. There were certain well-arranged regulations for our daily life and conduct, and that any allowance should be made for individual temperament was to her mind neither suitable nor desirable. She treated me as one of her own, and that it was possible for me to need more did not enter into her calculations. But I did need more. I was a child of extremely warm affections, and though I could not have expressed the feeling, my heart felt starved upon the very small amount of love and attention which fell to my share. I tried my best to be brave and not to fret, but sometimes my home-sickness would gain the upper hand, and I have often wet my pillow with bitter tears, longing with a yearning that was almost agony for one kiss from my father before I went to sleep.

With my cousins I was soon a favourite.

"Tell us again about San Carlos, and the forest, and the tree-witches, and the gri-gri man," said Edgar and Mary, who listened spell-bound to my reminiscences of Tasso's marvellous stories; and I would sit in the dusk by the nursery fire, with an audience of eager little faces around me, putting such horrible realism into my narratives that Donald brought Blair from her supper by screaming that the gri-gri man was under his bed, while poor Mary never dared in future to pass the lumber-room door, for fear of seeing a grinning goblin pop his head suddenly out of the darkness.

Though we afterwards became the best of friends, Lucy treated me at first with little airs of superiority and patronage. I am afraid we began our acquaintance with a wordy war.

"You must feel quite glad to be in a proper English house, after living in that queer foreign place," she remarked, by way of opening the conversation.

"No, I'm not," I retorted. "Our house at San Carlos is ever so much nicer than this. It has marble floors, and a terrace, and a pergola."

"I don't know what a pergola is," replied Lucy. "But we have a balcony, and that's quite as good. Your clothes are so funnily made, Blair says she hardly likes to take you out. Mother has sent for Miss Jenkins to make you some new ones. You're going to do lessons with us every day. I wonder if you'll be able to learn with me. Can you speak French?"

"No, but I can speak Spanish."

"Oh, that's no use! Who wants to talk Spanish? Mother said you had learnt it from the servants, and the sooner you forgot it the better."

"I won't forget it. I shall speak it when I go back."

"You're not going back."

"Yes, I am, soon. Father will send for me," I ventured desperately.

"No, not till you're quite grown up. I heard Mother tell Miss Masterman so just now. She said your ways were as queer as your clothes, and you would take a great deal of training before you were fit to be sent to school."

"I will go back! I will speak Spanish!" I declared in great indignation. "Juanita and Tasso can't speak anything else."

"I wonder you care to talk to negroes," said Lucy, tossing back her hair. "I like white people myself, and I'm sure you needn't boast of having been carried about by an old black man!"

The slight to my dear friends stung me even more than the insult to my clothes and my manners, and I ended in a storm of miserable crying. Next to my father I very truly missed those kind companions of my childhood, and ever to forget them seemed to me the basest ingratitude.

My new English clothes were of sober colours and serviceable materials; they seemed to match my new life, and perhaps my manners changed with them, for I soon settled down into the little daily round which was appointed for me. At first I found the regular lessons somewhat of a trial, as I had never been accustomed either to learn systematically, or really to apply myself. But Miss Masterman, our daily governess, was both a kind and clever teacher, and after a while I grew so interested in my work that I easily caught up Lucy, and even began to outstrip her—a little, I fancy, to her chagrin.

I wrote regularly to my father. I have one of these childish letters by me now, for he treasured them carefully, and to read it brings back so keenly the remembrance of those early days that I shall give it a place in these pages. Here it is, exactly as I wrote it, in my most careful round hand.

Chestnut Avenue,

June 12th.

"My dearest Father,

"I think of you every day of my life. I have put your photo on my dressing-table, and I kiss it good-night and good-morning as if it were really you. I am trying very hard to be happy, but my two troubles are porridge and scales. Porridge is something like the food Tasso used to mix up for the ducks, only you eat it hot. Blair says it will make me grow strong, and I must take what is given me and not find fault, so I gulp it down, though it nearly chokes me. Scales are detestable. Miss Masterman puts pennies on the backs of my hands, but I cannot help jerking my arm when I turn my thumb under, so they always fall on to the floor, and then she is cross.

"I like drawing the best of all my lessons. I have bought a new paint-box with the money you sent me, and I will try and make pictures for you of everything I see. There are no orange-trees or coffee-plantations here. We go walks down long streets with tall houses on both sides, or sometimes into the Park, which I like better, though it is not so nice as the garden at San Carlos, for you may not pick the flowers, and there are sparrows instead of humming-birds. I hope Juanita does not forget to feed the terrapin and the green lizard. Give my love to her, and to Tasso and Pedro and everybody. Aunt Agatha is writing to you herself, and she will put this letter inside hers.

"From your loving little daughter,

"PHILIPPA SEATON."

If I found my life in London rather hard to bear at times, I am afraid my attempts to relieve the monotony of my existence were not always a success at head-quarters. I had a lively imagination, and my inventive faculty was continually leading me into planning games which my cousins thought only too delightful, but which were set down as either mess or mischief by those in authority. When Aunt Agatha found us tobogganing down the back staircase in a clothes-basket, she knew at once the instigator of the sport, and she easily guessed who had taken the chairs from the best bedroom to form a menagerie in the nursery. It was I who conceived the brilliant idea of making a sea-side resort for the dolls with the aid of the tea-tray full of water and the sand out of the canary's cage, a most interesting and fascinating pastime for us, but looked at in a very different light by Blair, when she returned to find the younger children with sopping pinafores, and my miniature ocean slowly wending its way in trickles over the nursery floor.

I do not suppose they had, for though they loved a romp, they were not naturally imaginative; but they immensely enjoyed my ideas, and were always ready to fall in with my schemes, from soap slides on the attic-landing to the fairy palace which I constructed in the lumber-room out of old lace curtains hung over towel-rails, or the ogre's den in the housemaid's cupboard under the stairs.

I remember well how, one afternoon, when Blair for a wonder was absent, I seized the golden opportunity to organize a grand game of carnival. The children's pocket-handkerchiefs and silk neckties were collected from the various drawers and hung up as flags on a string fastened from the gas-bracket to the window. All my little cousins were eager to be masquers, and I racked my brains to devise costumes for them out of the very limited materials at my command.

Lucy, in her night-dress, with two sheets of copy-book paper fastened on to her shoulders as wings, made quite a creditable angel. Edgar was an Indian, his face painted in stripes of red and yellow, some feathers plucked from the dusting-broom stuck in his curly locks, and the hearth-brush for a tomahawk. Mary, with my best sash draped artistically over her right shoulder, represented Venus, with Cuthbert for a Cupid; Donald, in Aunt Agatha's furs, stolen shamelessly from her bedroom, rollicked about as a savage; and, as I really had no clothes left for Dorothy, I blacked her face with a piece of coal, and transformed her into a little negro child. I myself was Father Neptune, with a toasting-fork for a trident, and as we paraded round the nursery, pelting each other with pieces of torn-up paper for confetti, I think we rivalled in noise the wildest carnival I had ever witnessed at San Carlos.

We were in the very height of our excitement, and were scrambling eagerly for pretended bon-bons, which Lucy was flinging from an imaginary balcony, when the door was suddenly opened, and Aunt Agatha entered, ushering in a visitor.

"This is my little flock, Mrs. Winstanley—" she began, then stopped short in utter dismay at the scene of confusion before her.

My aunt's sense of humour was not keen; her orderly nursery and tidy family were her pride, and the sight of the tumbled heads and crumpled pinafores, the clothes strewn hither and thither, and the painted and blackened faces of her ordinarily well-behaved darlings was enough to justify her look of extreme annoyance. She turned at once upon the true offender.

"Philippa, what have you been doing with the children?" she asked sharply.

No culprit caught red-handed could have felt more guilty or discomfited than I. I gasped out something incoherent about "carnival", and burst into tears.

But here the visitor saved the situation.

"It is very kind of the little ones to be en fête to welcome us, Mrs. Seaton," she said gently. "My own children often dress up when they wish to give me a treat. I have not seen a carnival since I was last at Nice, and I don't think any of the masquers were so natural as these. So this is little Philippa!" she continued as she sat down, and drew me quietly to her side. "I hope you will learn to love me some day, for your mother was my dearest friend, and I could not pass through London to-day without taking the opportunity of coming to see her only child."

She kissed me with a warmth I had missed since I bade that last good-bye to my father; there were tears in her eyes, and, strangely moved, I clung to her, crying a little, but more comforted than I could have found words to tell.

It was thus that I first made acquaintance with one of the truest friends of my life.

CHAPTER III

I GO TO SCHOOL

"Send her to Fairfield College, my dear," said Mrs. Montgomery, whose own daughters were the champion hockey-players of the neighbourhood. "It is splendid for games. Compulsory cricket, Swedish gymnastics every day, and a thoroughly healthy and active out-of-door existence. Just the life for a rather delicate child."

"Now I think they overdo athletics at most schools," said Mrs. Buchanan Smith, the gay widow of an officer. "Give me the French system of education. My Stella is at a convent in Paris. I consider the Sisters teach the most adorable manners, and the girls return home with a finish that is very different from the hoydenish ways they learn at some of our colleges."

"If you ask me, I have no opinion at all of foreign schools," said Mrs. Northby, the doctor's wife. "My husband says the sanitary arrangements are generally most defective, and that English children, accustomed to plenty of fresh air and ventilation, would be very liable to contract typhoid. I think, too, that the French 'jeune fille' is brought up in an atmosphere of falsehood and deceit, and without any idea of rational enjoyment, and I prefer to send my little girl to a day-school, where she can get a sound education, while I can keep her under my own eye. I do not like the plan of sending children away to boarding-schools just at the time when their health needs most attention, and they are forming their strongest opinions."

"I'm afraid I don't agree with you," said Mrs. Montgomery. "I consider a boarding-school is the world in miniature, and it helps a girl to find her own level. She will learn many other things besides her lessons, and will no doubt make some pleasant friendships; but the school must be a good one, for inferior companions are worse than none."

"It is no question of terms," said Aunt Agatha. "My brother-in-law is anxious for her to have every advantage. It's simply a matter of choosing the best, and I feel the responsibility of my position."

"If you will take my advice, you will send her to The Hollies," said Mrs. (Archdeacon) Carrington, who had listened silently so far to the conversation. "Mrs. Marshall only receives forty pupils, but I consider she turns out the best-informed and best-mannered girls of my acquaintance. She has so many applications, that it is sometimes difficult to secure a vacancy, but I think on my recommendation it might be arranged."

The Archdeacon's lady was the leader of society among Aunt Agatha's friends, and her opinion carried weight.

"We all know how particular she is," said Mrs. Buchanan Smith afterwards. "And any school which she recommends must be most select, both as regards education, and the girls who are there. Indeed, if Stella had not already returned to Paris, I think I should have seriously considered the possibility of sending her to The Hollies."

My aunt was inclined to take the same view, and when on further inquiries it was found that Mrs. Marshall was equally highly thought of in other quarters, and that Mrs. Winstanley's only daughter Catherine was already a pupil at the school, the question was considered settled. I was to be sent after the Easter holidays, and Uncle Herbert determined that Lucy should accompany me. We were full of the importance of our departure.

"We're to learn German and dancing," said Lucy. "And music from an Italian master. Our school clothes won't be made by Miss Jenkins; Mother is going to take us to her own dressmaker. We're each to have a new trunk, and umbrellas with silver tops."

Aunt Agatha escorted us herself to The Hollies, for she had not yet seen either the school or the neighbourhood, though she had had an interview with Mrs. Marshall in London. It seemed a long journey into Derbyshire, and our pent-up excitement had plenty of time to cool while the train ran through the rather uninteresting scenery of Northampton and Leicester, but it burst out again with renewed vigour when we at length drew up at the little station of Helston Spa.

With what curiosity we viewed every other girl upon the platform, wondering whether she were bound for the same destination as ourselves, and how soon we should get to know her. We looked rather longingly at an omnibus laden with a jolly, laughing crew, who seemed to be in charge of a teacher; but my aunt bustled us into a cab, and we drove away along a white limestone road, bordered with tall crags on the one side and a brawling stream on the other.

The Hollies proved to be an old-fashioned red-brick house with a trim garden, and playing-fields beyond.

"It's a nice open situation, and the air feels bracing," said Aunt Agatha, sniffing the breeze as if to test its quality. "I notice that it faces south, and there's a pretty view over the woods and hills. It ought to be healthy, I'm sure, so far away from London smoke and fog."

Lucy and I looked with delight at the gray hills in the distance, and the line of fresh green trees which fringed the river; after the long, dull streets of our suburban home, it was pleasant to feel that our school was in the country.

Mrs. Marshall received new arrivals in the drawing-room, and when we had bidden a rather hasty good-bye to Aunt Agatha, who was returning to town by the next train, and had unpacked our boxes in the pretty little bedroom which we were to share together, we were ushered down to the play-room by a teacher, to make the acquaintance of our school-fellows. There was a pause in the loud hum of conversation as the door opened, and I caught the words "new girls". Miss Buller, the governess, seemed busy, and not able to waste any time upon us, so she merely announced: "Lucy and Philippa Seaton. I hope you will make them welcome, girls;" and hurried away, leaving us standing shyly by the door, not quite knowing what to do next.

The little group collected round the fire moved slightly so as to make room for us, and a pretty fair-faced girl, with a mop of frizzy pale-gold hair, came forward.

"Come along," she said brightly, "and I'll tell you who we all are. I'm Doris Forbes, and this is my sister Janet, and these are Ellinor Graham, Millicent Holmes, Blanche Greenwood, and Olave and Beatrice Milner," pointing to each as she spoke. "Most of the others are still upstairs unpacking their boxes, and a few of us haven't arrived yet. Now as you're new girls, we want to know all about you. To begin with, which is Lucy, and which is Philippa? Are you sisters, and have you ever been to school before?"

"I'm Philippa," I replied, "and this is my cousin Lucy. We've never been to school before; we had a governess at home."

"All the better for you," put in the tall girl in the blue dress whom the others called Millicent Holmes. "Mrs. Marshall never likes girls who come from other schools. She says she has to teach them everything all over again."

"That's just to make you think her ways are better than anyone else's," said Ellinor Graham. "I've had five music masters, and every one has put me back to the beginning, and told me the others didn't know how to teach."

"Then you'll get put back again this term," laughed Blanche Greenwood. "For Herr Goldschmidt has gone home to Germany, and we're to have an Italian, named Signor Salviati, instead."

"No!" cried the girls with thrilling interest. "Have you seen him? What's he like?"

"Oh, don't excite yourselves! He's not a romantic-looking Italian, with long curls and a twisted moustache; he's a nasty little fat oily kind of a man, with a pointed beard, who looks as if he could be horribly cross if you played wrong notes."

"How disgusting!" cried the others. "Are there any other changes?"

"Miss Buller is to have the fourth class," said Blanche, who seemed to be the general fund of information. "Janet, Beatrice, and Olave are on the early-morning practising list for this month" (groans from Janet, Beatrice, and Olave at the bad news), "the Simpsons have the bedroom at the end of the passage, with the balcony, and Miss Percy is to take the sewing this term."

"What a nuisance!" lamented Janet. "She's so particular! I can never make my stitches small enough to satisfy her. I hate poking over sewing. I wish we went to Ecclestone, where our cousins go, it's exactly like a boys' public school; they have a matron to do all the mending, and the girls play football."

"I know they do," said Millicent, "and Mother says it is most unladylike. We know several girls who go there, and they behave so badly, sitting on the edges of the drawing-room tables, and gulping their tea, and bolting their cake, and talking the most atrocious slang."

"My sister goes to St. Chad's," said Ellinor Graham, "and they weigh the girls every time they go back. They won't let them do any work if they're not 'up to standard', and Patty's so thin that she's always 'turned out to grass', as they call it, for at least a fortnight at the beginning of each term. I think she has a lovely time."

"Yes, but you have to wear the school costume at St. Chad's, even in church," put in Doris. "And it's ever so ugly—a blue serge dress with no shape in it, a plaid golf-cape, and a cricket-cap. I shouldn't like that at all!" and she smoothed down her pretty dress with evident satisfaction.

"You haven't yet told us what class you're to be put in," said Blanche Greenwood, turning to Lucy and myself, who had been listening with much interest to the conversation.

"In the fourth, I believe," said Lucy. "Mrs. Marshall said she expected we could both manage the work."

"The fourth! That's to be Miss Buller's. Janet and Olave and I are in the same class, and Catherine Winstanley is to be monitress for the month. By the by, where is Cathy? Has no one seen her?"

"Here!" said a voice from the door, and a slender girl of about thirteen came forward to join the group. She was a pretty girl, with long, curling brown hair, and a very graceful way of holding herself. Her pleasant manner and bright winning smile attracted me to her at once. Her dark eyes seemed familiar, and I wondered where I had seen them before, till in a sudden flash of remembrance I recalled how eyes just the same had looked into mine when Mrs. Winstanley had held me close in her arms, and told me she was my mother's friend. So this was the little daughter of whom she had spoken, and as I watched her I hoped with all my heart that we, too, might become friends. She seemed to be a general favourite, for there were many affectionate greetings between her and the other girls, and numerous interchanges of home and school news, but at length she turned to where Lucy and I were standing.

"I think," she said, speaking to me, "that you must be Philippa Seaton. Mother told me you would be here, and that I was to look out for you. I suppose this is your cousin Lucy. I'm so glad that we're all to be in the same class. I hope your bedroom is near mine. Oh! there's the tea-bell, and we must go, but I shall see you again afterwards."

She walked away, with her arm linked in that of Janet Forbes, and Lucy and I followed the others to the dining-room, where tea was being dispensed in an informal manner by Miss Buller and one of the under teachers. For this first meal there were no special places, and I found myself sitting at table next to a rather stout, rosy-cheeked girl, perhaps a year older than myself, whose name appeared to be Ernestine Salt.

She moved very grudgingly to make room, but she did not speak to me, nor take any further notice. Lucy and I sat silently watching our thirty companions. It was all new and strange to us—the fresh faces, the school-girl chaff, the jokes and allusions to things of which we as yet knew nothing, and we wondered how long it would be before we could take our part in that lively conversation.

"I never can eat anything the first night," declared one of the girls, mopping her eyes rather ostentatiously with a lace-edged pocket-handkerchief. "I'm always so terribly homesick, and they cut the bread so thick!"

"Nothing spoils my appetite," proclaimed Ernestine Salt. "I'm so frightfully hungry, I shall eat your share. I didn't have half enough sandwiches on the journey, though I bought three oranges and two jam-tarts at the railway-station as well. Where is the bread-and-butter?"

As the plate was within my reach, I handed it to her. She looked me coolly up and down, as if she were taking in every detail of my appearance, but she did not thank me.

"Oh, never mind manners, just help yourself and shove it on," she said carelessly. "We do as we like the first evening. Mrs. Marshall will come down to tea to-morrow, and then it'll have to be prunes and prism."

"Not so loud, Ernestine, I can hear your voice above all the others," said Miss Buller, who seemed trying to check the talk that every now and then threatened to become too uproarious.

A fresh instalment of girls, who had arrived by a later train, and now joined the tea-table, claimed general attention, and the meal at length being over, the whole party trooped away to the play-room. It was a chilly evening, and I stood by the fire warming my hands, while I watched the various girls who were walking about arm in arm, or standing together in select little groups. They were most of them laughing and talking with much excitement, but the loudest and noisiest of them all was Ernestine Salt, who with a few choice spirits had taken possession of the table, where she sat dangling her legs and eating chocolate, the silver paper from which she made into small hard pellets, and fired at unsuspecting passers-by, provoking shrieks of laughter from her companions. So amusing did she evidently find this occupation, that, the pellets being exhausted, she fished some walnut-shells out of her pocket, and commenced a perfect onslaught on a neighbouring group of girls. They, however, did not take it so peaceably, for, suddenly seizing the table, they tilted it over, sending her ignominiously sprawling upon the floor, while, seating themselves in her vacant place, they announced their intention of holding the fort against all comers.

"I don't care!" said Ernestine, picking herself up, and moving away towards the fire. "It's horribly cold, and I was going to get warm anyhow. You can keep your old table, if you want. Here, get out of my way, you little animal!" and, pushing me rudely aside, she pulled a chair forward and seated herself in the very front of the cheerful blaze.

"I'm not an animal!" I said with some indignation, for I thought her manner most disagreeable, and I was determined to hold my own.

"Mineral, then, if you prefer it!" she returned, with a laugh.

I looked her up and down as coolly as she had surveyed me at the tea-table.

"I should think it is you who are the mineral, if your name is 'Salt'," I said quietly. "I only wonder they didn't add 'pepper' when they were christening you!"

Her companions tittered.

"You've met your match, Ernestine?" declared one.

"Sharp little thing! Who is she?" whispered another.

"You won't put 'salt' on that bird's tail!" said a third, laughing at her own joke.

Ernestine looked as black as thunder, but for the moment she had no repartee ready, and she was saved from the necessity of a reply by the tinkle of a bell, and the voice of the head-girl, who announced that a general meeting of the various committees of the school sports and games was about to be held, at which everybody was requested to attend.

"I'm glad you stood up to Ernestine Salt," said Janet Forbes, who had been a silent listener. "But I'm afraid she'll hate you ever afterwards, and she can be uncommonly nasty when she likes. You'll be in for the cricket? We all have to play, whether we want to or not. I suppose you didn't bring a bat? The tennis-courts are reserved for the upper forms, but the fourth and fifth classes are getting up a Badminton club, and I advise you to join that. I'll propose you for the archery, too, if you like; it's splendid fun when we have a tournament."

Lucy and I were only too ready to be included in anything that might be going on, and soon found ourselves duly elected members, not only of the Badminton and archery, but also of a croquet club and an athletic society, which was to practise various feats of skill for the annual sports.

"How are you getting on?" said Catherine Winstanley, making her way across the room to us from a quieter group of girls who seemed to have been having a private meeting apart from the others. "I'm glad you're joining all the games. Shall I propose you for the dramatic society? We always get up a piece at the end of the term. Mother told me how you were playing at carnival that time she saw you in London, and how well you had dressed up all your cousins, so I'm sure you must be fond of acting."

"I wish you would," I replied; "I should like to join immensely."

"Then let us go at once; they're just electing the members now. Janet, come here! I'm going to propose Philippa for the dramatic society. Will you second her?"

"Of course I will," answered Janet heartily; and they stepped across to the select committee, who were seated on the top of a long row of lockers at the end of the room.

"I beg to propose Philippa Seaton as an active member of this society," said Cathy, with a little business-like air.

"And I beg to second this proposal," added Janet, pulling me forward to show me to the committee. The president, a tall girl in spectacles, took out her note-book and a well-worn stump of pencil ready to record my name.

"The candidate has been duly proposed and seconded. Has any member any objection to raise?" she enquired.

"I veto the election!" said Ernestine Salt hastily, rising before anyone else had time to reply. "The candidate is a new girl; we don't know yet whether she can act, and we don't want to admit members who can't speak up, and who turn their backs upon the audience!"

"I can answer for it that she wouldn't do that," said Cathy, flushing rather indignantly.

"How do you know? Don't be absurd, Cathy Winstanley! We're not going to spoil the society to oblige you, or anybody else. Besides, ten members are quite enough if we want to give parts to each, and I, for one, sha'n't consent to any more being brought in."

The committee seemed inclined to take Ernestine's view of the matter, and, the bell ringing for prayers, the meeting broke up in confusion.

"I'm so sorry!" said Cathy, squeezing my hand as we went up the stairs together. "I'm sure you can act. I can see it in your face. They would certainly have elected you if it hadn't been for Ernestine. Never mind, you'll get your chance later, and then you must show them what you can do."

Lucy and I went to bed that night feeling as if it were years since we had left home, so much seemed to have happened already in the short time we had been at school.

"There are two things I'm quite certain of," I remarked, as we discussed the day's doings while we brushed and plaited our hair. "I shall dislike Ernestine Salt exceedingly, but I've simply fallen in love with Catherine Winstanley."