aid she would stay at home and do double lessons if the rest of us
could only go. Noble of the Goat, I call it; only it won't be half so
much fun without her, and Billy gone, too. Oh, you can't possibly
imagine how we miss Billy. How forlorn this room looks without all her
pretty things!" She glanced about the room. "Perf'ly awful, isn't it?"
she said.

Poor Peggy flushed scarlet. Bertha Haughton flashed her a glance of
indignant sympathy.

"Billy had the room simply ridiculous!" she said, hastily. "Almost as
bad as your toyshop, Vanity. I can't abide a frippy room!"

Viola Vincent opened her blue eyes wide. "What ruffled you up, Fluffy?"
she said. "I didn't say anything about the Nest." Then, happening to
glance at Peggy, she realised what she had said, and blushed a little
herself.

"I'm sure I didn't mean anything!" she cried, with a little giggle. "Of
course when Miss Montfort gets all her things out and arranged, it will
be quite charming, I'm sure it will."

"I haven't any more things!" said honest Peggy. She managed to keep her
voice steady, but the tears would come into her eyes, and she raged at
herself.

"Oh, you'll accumulate them!" said good-natured Viola, who liked to have
people comfortable, if it did not take too much trouble. "Won't she, V.?
We had hardly anything when we came, had we, V.? Barns, my dear, were
nothing to us, were they, V.?"

"Oh, of course not!" assented Miss Varnham; but her smile was so like a
sneer, and her glance about the room so cold and contemptuous, that
Peggy felt dislike hardening at her heart.

"What is all that noise in the entry?" exclaimed Bertha Haughton,
anxious to change the conversation. "It sounds as if an elephant were
coming to call."

Viola Vincent fluttered to the door, patting her waist affectionately as
she went.

"My _dear_!" she cried, in high-pitched staccato tones. "It's a box, an
express box. Oh, it's a perfect monster, a mammoth! Vi, this must be
your dresses. Hurrah! we'll have a grand trying on."

Vivia Varnham looked out. A burly expressman was staggering forward with
an enormous box, almost as big as a packing-case.

"Take it in there!" she said, imperiously, motioning across the
corridor. "Put it down carefully, mind! Miss Varnham, is it?"

"No, miss," said the man, respectfully. "Miss Montfort!"

"Me!" cried Peggy, starting to her feet. "Oh, there must be some
mistake. I wasn't--there's nothing coming for me."

"It must be for you!