r rather that Mrs. Clinton should
drop in at the Rectory in the course of the morning and ask them, as he
would be too busy.

Then Cicely asked if she might have Kitty, the pony, for the morning,
and the Squire at once said, "No, she'll be wanted to take up food for
the pheasants," after which he retired to his room, but immediately
returned to ask Cicely what she wanted the pony for.

"I want to go over to Mountfield," said Cicely.

"Very well, you can have her," said the Squire, and retired again.

Mrs. Clinton made no comment on the disclosures that had been made, but
took up her basket of keys and left the room.

"Now, Joan and Nancy, do not linger but get ready for your lessons at a
quarter to ten punctually," Miss Bird broke forth volubly. "Every
morning I have to hunt you from the breakfast table and my life is spent
in trying to make you punctual. I am sure if your father knew the
trouble I have with you he would speak to you about it and then you
would see."

"Melbury Park!" exclaimed Nancy in a voice of the deepest disgust, as
she rose slowly from the table. "'Pon my word, Joan, it's too bad. I
spend my life in trying to make you punctual and then you want to go to
Melbury Park! Pah! A nice sort of a _park_!"

"Are you going to see Muriel, Cicely?" asked Joan, also rising
deliberately. "Starling, _darling_! Don't hustle me, I'm coming. I only
want to ask my sister Cicely a question."

"Yes," said Cicely. "If I couldn't have had Kitty I should have walked."

"How unreasonable you are, Cicely," said Nancy. "The pony is wanted to
take chickweed to the canaries at Melbury Park."

"Find out all about it, Cis," said Joan in process of being pushed out
of the room. "Oh, take it, Miss Bird, _please_, take it."

Cicely drove off through the park at half-past ten. Until she had passed
through the lodge gates and got between the banks of a deep country
lane, Kitty went her own pace, quite aware that she was being driven by
one whose unreasonable inclinations for speed must subordinate
themselves to the comfort of pony-flesh as long as she was in sight of
house or stables. Then, with a shake of her head, she suddenly quickened
her trot, but did not escape the cut of a whip which was always
administered to her at this point. With that rather vicious little cut
Cicely expressed her feelings at a state of things in which, with
fourteen or fifteen horses in the stable and half a dozen at the home
farm, the only a