Jean. "What do you think he did last Sunday? He
had promised to be extra good in church, and he was so quiet, we thought
he was behaving beautifully, and then I looked, and found he was rubbing
his face along the hot-water pipes, and had made black smears all across
his cheeks, and on his white sailor collar. He's an extremely naughty
boy sometimes, I can assure you. Nell, I wish you'd go and find Colin.
He wants to see you, Patty, very much; but he's so dreadfully shy with
girls, I don't know whether we shall be able to persuade him to come
into the room after all."

Nell returned in a few minutes, hauling the bashful and unwilling Colin
by the hand. He was a boy of thirteen, like Jean in appearance, and
rather gruff and abrupt in his manners, until he found that Patty was
not so formidable as he had imagined, and that she had a brother the
same age as himself, who had also won a prize for the long jump at his
school sports.

"Colin's still at a preparatory," explained Jean, "but he's to go to a
public school next year, either Marlborough or Rugby--Father can't quite
decide which."

"Which would you rather?" enquired Patty.

"Rugby, because a fellow I know is there," replied Colin, decisively.

"I shall go to Rugby too, when Colin does," announced Jamie confidently.

"No, thanks! I wouldn't take you with those curls. You may go to The
Priory with Jean," said Colin teasingly.

"Would you take me without my curls?"

"They'd certainly have to shear you first."

"Then I'll cut them off now, my own self!" cried Jamie, jumping from
Patty's knee and rummaging in his nurse's workbasket for her scissors,
which his sister promptly took away from him.

"Look here, Curlylocks!" she said. "If you cut your hair you won't get
any more chocolates. No, not a single one ever again. I should give them
all to Nell to eat instead. It's quite true. I mean it. I do indeed."

"I don't want to go to school yet," declared Nell. "Jean says you have
to sit so still in class, and not even whisper. Miss Thornton tells me
to run six times round the room when I begin to get tired."

"I'm afraid Miss Harper wouldn't let us do that, however much we might
fidget," laughed Patty. "I should like to see her face if we suggested
it. Is Miss Thornton your governess?"

"Yes; she comes every morning, but we're having holidays now. I like
holidays best."

"So do most people," said Jean; "but it's not much of a holiday for
anybody to sit nursing