ew. Just
after all that discussion--and I can tell you I was shaking in my shoes
for ever so long--just when it had ended so well, you must go and vex
Aunt Alison by wanting to have the Harpers here at tea. I think you are
absurd about those girls, as you always are about new friends. _I_ don't
want them here at tea, or at anything.'

'Well, I do, then, or rather I did,' said Frances doggedly. 'That's just
all the difference. No girls have as dull a life as we have.'

'It's a very silly time for you to begin complaining, just when we have
a chance of some amusement and change,' said Jacinth. 'I'm almost sure
Lady Myrtle will ask us to spend the day, or something like that, very
soon.'

'I don't want to go. It's you she cares for, and you may keep her to
yourself,' said Frances, waxing more and more cross. 'I wish I was a
boarder at school. I'd like it far better than being always scolded by
you.'

It was not often that Frances so rebelled, or that their small squabbles
went so nearly the length of a quarrel. But this morning there seemed
disturbance in the air; and to add to it, when Frances had finished her
English lessons, and was about to begin her French translation, she
found, to her dismay, that she had forgotten to bring an important book
home with her.

'What _shall_ I do?' she exclaimed, forgetting, in her distress, the
unfriendly state of feeling between herself and her sister. 'I really
must have it, or I shall miss all my marks in the French class, and you
know, Jacinth, I had set my heart on getting the prize.'

Jacinth's sympathy was aroused. She herself was in a higher class than
her sister, but she was greatly interested in Frances's success. For
Frances was rather a giddy little person. Till the companionship and
emulation at school had roused her, she had never bestowed more
attention on her lessons than was absolutely unavoidable.

'I don't know what to do,' said the elder girl after some reflection. 'I
don't see how you are to get the book till Monday.'

For there was a strict rule at the school, that day-scholars were
neither to go there nor to send messages from their homes, out of school
hours. So that forgettings of books required for preparation, or other
carelessnesses of the kind, became serious matters.

'If I don't get it till I go to school on Monday, I needn't get it at
all,' said Frances. 'There's no comfort in telling me that. You know the
class _is_ on Monday morning, so I've