the door, and blocked the window with determined
faces, though deep in each heart lurked the conviction that Miss Bruce's
morbidly acute conscience would feel it her duty to interfere.

"Nix for the Spider!" hissed Gurth, prising a hockey-stick against the
handle of the door the while he gazed with elaborate calm at a poster on
the station wall. It was inevitable that a person named Bruce should be
given the nickname of "Spider" by young people who disdained correct
appellations as heartily as did the Saxons, and, indeed, the busy little
black figure darting to and fro on the platform might have been much
less aptly named. She hustled the twins and Nannie into a carriage,
turned her head to look for her elder pupils, and, upon realising the
position, reared her head with the fighting gesture which they knew so
well. For a moment, as she stood facing the coupe window, it seemed
absolutely certain that she would insist upon joining the party, and so
spoiling sport for the whole of the journey, but even as she looked her
expression altered, a flicker of something--what was it?--affection,
sympathy, pity passed over her face, she turned without a word, entered
the carriage wherein the twins were seated, and disappeared from sight.

The plot had succeeded, but their success had left the conspirators dumb
with wonder and surprise.

"I say! what's taken her all of a sudden?" ejaculated Gurth. Hereward
whistled loudly, while Dreda, ever the prey of her emotions, began to
flush and quiver beneath the prickings of remorse.

"Oh, poor dear! Oh, she _saw_! She saw we didn't want her! What
brutes we are! Gurth, go!--go quickly, before the train starts, and
tell her to come in here at once!"

"Not I! What a turncoat you are, Dreda! Of course she saw! We _meant_
her to see. You were the worst of the lot, scowling as if she were an
ogre. Don't be a little sneak!"

"Not a sneak!" protested Dreda, hotly. "S'pose I did. I can be sorry,
can't I? She looked so--_sick_! It made me feel mean."

"All right! Go in to the other carriage, then, and suck up! We don't
want her here, but there's room for you in there, if you like to change!
Say the word! We are off in a minute!"

Etheldreda blushed, shuffled, and tossed her pigtail, but made not the
slightest attempt to move from her place, whereat her brothers and
sister chuckled with easy amusement.

"Oh, Dreda, in our hours of ease,
Uncertain, coy, and hard to pl