ation, by the way the cards are placed."

"I haven't any dark relations. They're all as fair as fair--the whole
family."

"It's silly nonsense! I don't believe in it!" declared Lilias
emphatically.

"I dare say it is, but it's fun, all the same. Do tell mine now,
Prissie!" urged Noreen, gathering up the cards and reshuffling them.

Before the fates could be further consulted, however, the big bell
clanged for preparation, and the magician was obliged to pocket her
cards, hurry downstairs, get out her lesson books, and write a piece of
French translation, while the inquirers into her mysteries also
separated, some to practise piano or violin, and some to study.

"A dark woman!" scoffed Dulcie, spilling the ink in her scorn as she
filled her fountain pen. "Any gypsy would have told me a fortune like
that. I'll let you know when she comes along, Prissie!"

"All serene! Bring her to school if you like!" laughed Prissie. "You
didn't let me finish, or I might have gone on to something nicer. There
were other things on the cards as well as those."

"What things?"

"Oh, I shan't tell you now, when you only make fun of them! Sh! sh!
Here's Miss Herbert!"

And Prissie, turning away from her comrade, opened her French dictionary
and plunged into the difficulties of her page of translation from
Racine.

CHAPTER IV

Disinherited

Valentine's Day had brought early flowers, and the song of the thrush
and glints of golden sunshine, but the bright weather was too good to
last, and winter again stretched out an icy hand to check the advance of
spring. Green daffodil buds peeped through a covering of snow, and the
yellow jessamine blossom fell sodden in the rain. The playing-field was
a quagmire, and the girls had to depend upon walking for their daily
exercise. Their tramps were somewhat of an adventure, for in places the
swollen brooks were washing over the tops of their bridges, and they
would be obliged to turn back, or go round by devious ways. The river in
the valley had overflowed its banks and spread over the low-lying
meadows like a lake. Tops of gates and hedges appeared above the flood,
and sea-gulls, driven inland by the gales, swam over the pastures.
Flocks of peewits, starlings, and red-wings collected on the uplands,
and an occasional heron might be seen flitting majestically across the
storm-flecked sky.

As a rule the school sallied forth in waterproofs and thick boots,
regardless of drizzle or s