hundred and sixty-five days to dust ornaments,
interview the cook, and say, `Well, let me see! The cold mutton had
better be used up for lunch'--Oh, dear me!"

"I'll tell you what--let's have a nice long grumble," said Lettice,
giving her chair a hitch nearer the fire, and bending forward with a
smile of enjoyment. "Let's hold an Indignation Meeting on our own
account, and discuss our grievances. Women always have grievances
nowadays--it's the fashionable thing, and I like to be in the fashion.
Three charming and beauteous maidens shut up in the depths of the
country in the very flower of their youth, with nothing to do--I mean
with far too much to do, but with no amusement, no friends, no variety!
We are like the princesses in the fairy tales, shut up in the moated
tower; only then there were always fairy godmothers to come to the
rescue, and beautiful princes in golden chariots. We shall have to wait
a long time before any such visitors come tramping along the Kendal
high-road. I am sure it sounds melancholy enough to make anyone sorry
for us!"

"Father is the dearest man in the world, but he doesn't understand how a
girl of seventeen feels. I was seventeen on my last birthday, so it's
worse for me than for you, for I am really grown-up." Hilary sighed,
and rested her sleek little head upon her hand in a pensive, elderly
fashion. "I believe he thinks that if we have a comfortable home and
enough to eat, and moderately decent clothes, we ought to be content;
but I want ever so much more than that. If mother had lived--"

There was a short silence, and then Norah took up the strain in her
crisp, decided accents. "I am fifteen and a half, and I look very
nearly as old as you do, Hilary, and I'm an inch taller. I don't see
why I need go on with these stupid old classes. If I could go to a good
school, it would be another thing, for I simply adore music and
painting, and should love to work hard, and become celebrated; but I
don't believe Miss Briggs can teach me any more than I know myself, and
there is no better teacher for miles around. If father would only let
me go abroad for a year; but he is afraid of trusting me out of his
sight. If _I_ had seven children, I'd be glad to get rid of some of
them, if only to get a little peace and quietness at home."

"Mother liked the idea of girls being educated at home, that is the
reason why father objects to sending us away. The boys must go to
boarding-schoo