u!" sighed Dona dolefully. "You've been at a
boarding-school before, and I haven't; and you are not shy, and you
always get on with people. You know I'm a mum mouse, and I hate
strangers. I shall just endure till the holidays come. It's no use
telling me to brace up, for there's nothing to brace about."

In the bedroom where the two girls lay talking every preparation had
been made for a journey. Two new trunks, painted respectively with the
initials "M. D. A." and "D. E. A.", stood side by side with the lids
open, filled to the brim, except for sponge-bags and a few other items,
which must be put in at the last. Weeks of concentrated thought and
practical work on the part of Mother, two aunts, and a dressmaker had
preceded the packing of those boxes, for the requirements of
Brackenfield seemed numerous, and the list of essential garments
resembled a trousseau. There were school skirts and blouses, gymnasium
costumes, Sunday dresses, evening wear and party frocks, to say nothing
of underclothes, and such details as gloves, shoes, ties, ribbons, and
handkerchiefs, writing-cases, work-baskets, books, photos, and
knick-knacks. Two hand-bags, each containing necessaries for the first
night, stood by the trunks, and two umbrellas, with two hockey-sticks,
were already strapped up with mackintoshes and winter coats.

For both the girls this morning would make a new and very important
chapter in the story of their lives. Marjorie had, indeed, already been
at boarding-school, but it was a comparatively small establishment, not
to be named in the same breath with a place so important as
Brackenfield, and giving only a foretaste of those experiences which she
expected to encounter in a wider circle. She had been tolerably popular
at Hilton House, but she had made several mistakes which she was
determined not to repeat, and meant to be careful as to the first
impressions which she produced upon her new schoolfellows. Marjorie, at
fifteen and a half, was a somewhat problematical character. In her
childhood she had been aptly described as "a little madam", and it was
owing to the very turbulent effect of her presence in the family that
she had been packed off early to school, "to find her level among other
girls, and leave a little peace at home", as Aunt Vera expressed it.
"Finding one's level" is generally rather a stormy process; so, after
four years of give-and-take at Hilton House, Marjorie was, on the whole,
not at all sorry t