I
suppose she'll go and make up to Miss Nelson now, and tell her what
I've said. No, though, that isn't like her. She does try to stick up
for one. Poor little plain mite. Well, I don't intend to obey Miss
Nelson, Marjorie or no Marjorie. Basil is coming home from school, and
I shall go in the carriage to meet him. I don't care what Miss Nelson
said. She's not going to keep me from meeting my own Basil. Why, I was
fourteen a month ago--a great many girls are grown up at fourteen. I
don't mean English girls, of course, but foreigners, and I'm not going
to be kept in surveillance, just as if I was an infant."

Ermengarde was quite alone in her nice room. The house was still, for
just now the children--there were a good many children at Wilton
Chase--were out. The time was the end of July, and on this very day
Basil and Eric, the two public-school boys, were coming home. The
whole house, that is the nursery and schoolroom part of the house,
were in a flutter of expectation and excitement. Nothing ever
disturbed the other end of Wilton Chase, where father and Aunt
Elizabeth, and the numerous visitors resided. But the nurseries and
the schoolrooms were generally noisy apartments, and it was very
unusual to have such a stillness as now reigned over the whole of this
important portion of the house.

Ermengarde and Marjorie slept in two pretty white beds, side by side,
in this nice, large, cheerful bedroom. Ermengarde was completely
mistress, but she did not object to Marjorie's company, for Marjorie
was very plodding and useful and self-forgetful, and Ermie liked to be
waited on, and her complaints listened to, and her worries sympathized
with.

In many ways she was a commonplace child. She had a handsome little
face, and a proud, overbearing manner. She thought a great deal more
highly of herself than she ought, and she was a constant trial to Miss
Nelson, who was a most patient, long-suffering woman.

Ermengarde had been directly disobedient that morning, and as a
punishment Miss Nelson had decided that she was not to go in the
carriage to meet her brothers at the railway station. The little girl
had stared, bridled, drawn herself up in her haughtiest style, and
determined openly to defy Miss Nelson.

She had never gone to this length of rebellion before, and when the
governess went down to the seashore, accompanied by two or three of
the children, she imagined that Ermengarde would attend to her
neglected lessons, an