Margaret thinks it is proper to ignore their existence between the ages
of six and sixty. I thought if I put on the bright dress and my pet
chiffon fichu, they might not notice how thin my hair is at the top!"

"I'll tell them not to notice," said Bridgie gravely. She crossed the
room and poked the fire with the best brass poker, a real, live coal
fire and no wretched asbestos imitation, and knelt on the rug holding
out her hands to the blaze and scorching her cheeks with undisturbed
complacency.

The room was mathematically the same in size and shape as the one across
the road, but oh, how different in appearance! The one was a museum for
the preservation of household gods, the other a haven for rest and
amusement, where comfort was the first consideration and appearance the
last. Bridgie's mending-basket stood on the floor, Jack's pipe peered
from behind a chimney-piece ornament, and a bulky blotter and well-
filled ink-bottle showed that the writing-table was really and seriously
meant for use.

There was a writing-table in Miss Munns's drawing-room also, on which
were set out, in formal order, a _papier-mache_ blotter embellished with
a view of York Minster by moonlight, a brass ink-stand, which would have
been insulted by the touch of ink, and a penholder with a cornelian
handle which had never known a nib. Not the most daring of visitors had
ever been known to desecrate that shrine. When the mistress of the
house wished to write a letter, she spread a newspaper over the dining-
room table, and a sheet of blotting-paper over that, and carefully
unlocked the desk which had been a present from Cousin Mary Evans on her
sixteenth birthday!

It is extraordinary what a complete change of air may be obtained
sometimes by merely crossing a road, or going into the house at the
other side of a dividing wall! Sylvia felt that she might have
travelled a hundred miles, so entirely different were the conditions by
which she found herself surrounded.

By and by the three brothers arrived in a body, letting themselves into
the house with a latch-key, and talking together in eager undertones in
the hall. Bridgie sat still with a mischievous smile on her lips, and
presently the drawing-room door was noiselessly opened for half a dozen
inches, and round the corner appeared a brown head, a white forehead,
and a pair of curious brown eyes. Sylvia's cheeks were as pink as her
dress by the time that those eyes met hers, bu