beautiful school-days,
all the days of discipline and pleasant duty, and the ugly slack days,
when there would be nothing but home with house-work to do, were drawing
near.

And at last she could bear the thought of it by herself no longer.

It was early evening, and she was on the schoolroom verandah, watching
the young moon rise over a distant chimney. Every moment she expected
the prayer-bell to ring, and meanwhile, as it was not ringing, she
filled up the time by counting how many more evening prayer-bells would
ring before the end of term.

She counted on her fingers, out aloud, and found there were just
twenty-nine--twenty-nine without Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays.
Twenty-nine days, and then came the end of term, and the end of her
school-days.

It would then be Betty's turn--larrikin Betty's! The moon sailed over
the chimney, and Dot put her head down on the verandah railing and began
to cry. She did not cry in the vigorous whole-hearted way in which Betty
cried, but she sighed heavily, and sobbed gently, and allowed two or
three tears to run down her cheek before she brought out her dainty
handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes.

And at that precise moment Mona was crossing the schoolroom floor, and
she saw her darling Thea in tears! She was not given to light impulsive
movements at all, but this time she really did _spring_ forward and
kneel at Dot's side.

"Dear, darling Thea!" she whispered, "what is the matter? Miss Cowdell
has been bullying you for the silly old French? That's it, isn't it
dear?"

"Oh, no!" said Dot hopelessly, "nothing _half_ as small as that."

"You've lost the new sleeve-links Alma gave you? Never mind--there are
plenty more. Not that? What then? Tell your own Mona--tell your own old
Mona."

Two more tears ran down Dot's cheeks.

"It's--it's nearly the end of term," she said.

Mona nodded.

"And I'm going to leave school," she said.

Again Mona nodded and waited.

"I've to go home," said Dot, and she put her head down on Mona's
shoulder heavily.

"I've to go home too," said Mona, and she sighed, "right away to the
Richmond river, where you girls never come."

"My home," said Dot, "is like a little plain, hedged round with prickly
pear, and put on the top of a mountain. No one ever comes in, and we
never go out."

"Poor little Thea," said Mona.

"And we're very poor," went on Dorothea with strange recklessness; "we
ought to be rich, but we're not, and the house is