ht; but this was a
figure of speech.

"I'm all alive to be off--I don't care where. Oh, do think of a plan!
It's the sort of weather that makes one frantic to be away--to have
something happen. Don't you feel so?"

She looked longingly through the bow-window, across the small, neat
lawn, divided by low shrubs from a quiet road, not far beyond which lay
the river. The sisters were at breakfast together in the morning-room,
which was bathed in an early flood of sunshine.

Three years before this date they had been left orphaned and destitute,
and had come to their grandmother's home--a comfortable and charming
little country house, and, in their circumstances, a very haven of
refuge, but, still, a trifle dull for two young girls. Mittie often
complained of its monotony. Joan, eighteen months the elder, realised
how different their condition would have been had they not been welcomed
here. But she, too, was conscious of dulness, for she was only
eighteen.

[Sidenote: "Think of Something!"]

"Such sunshine! It's just _ordering_ us to be out. Joan, be sensible,
and think of something we can do--something jolly, something new! Just
for one day can't we leave everything and have a bit of fun? I'm aching
for a little fun! Oh, do get out of the jog-trot for once! Don't be
humdrum!"

"Am I humdrum?" Joan asked. She was not usually counted so attractive as
the fluffy-haired, lively Mittie, but she looked very pretty at this
moment. The early post had come in; and as she read the one note which
fell to her share a bright colour, not often seen there, flushed her
cheeks, and a sweet half-glad half-anxious expression stole into her
eyes.

"Awfully humdrum, you dear old thing! You always were, you know. How is
Grannie to-day?" Mittie seldom troubled herself to see the old lady
before breakfast, but left such attentions to Joan.

"She doesn't seem very well, and she is rather--depressed. I'm afraid we
couldn't possibly both leave her for the whole day--could we?" There was
a touch of troubled hesitation in the manner, and Joan sent a quick
inquiring glance at the other's face.

"No chance of that. We never do leave her for a whole day; and if we did
we should never hear the end of it. But we might surely be off after
breakfast, and take our lunch, and come back in time for tea. She might
put up with that, I do think. Oh dear me! Why can't old people remember
that once upon a time they were young, and didn't like to be tied