ispute it,' she said, with a little laugh. 'Agatha is in
love with the drawing-room. She has already arranged a corner for
herself there; her writing-table in the west window, her work-basket
and books in the corner by it, and her pet canary is now singing
himself hoarse at the view he has from the window.'

'Yes,' Agatha replied, 'it is an ideal old maid's corner, and that is
where you will always find me, when my housekeeping duties are not
keeping me away.'

'I wish we could have a sitting-room each,' said Clare; 'we get so in
each other's way.'

'You can share the study with me when you want to be quiet,' said Gwen.
'I won't have you there if you talk!'

'You're quite the owner of it already, then? And what are you going to
do, Elfie?'

'Oh, I shall be everywhere. Agatha never minds my music. I shall be
practising a good deal, and if I'm voted a bore, I shall take my violin
up to the bedroom. You and Gwen are the blue stockings, so the study
will be given over to you.'

This seemed satisfactory. Gwen was a great reader, and possessed
already a most valuable library. She wrote essays for some periodical
occasionally, but would never bind herself to any steady contributions,
and she was never so happy as when deeply engrossed in some ancient
histories of Egypt or Nineveh. The buried past had a fascination for
her, and perhaps she of all the others had most reason for regretting
the departure from London, for her constant visits to the reading-room
at the British Museum had been a keen delight and pleasure to her.
When quite a schoolgirl she used to say, with that masterful toss of
her head, 'I am quite determined that I will understand and master
every "ology" under the sun!'

And Gwen and her 'ologies' had been a perpetual joke in her family ever
since. She had dabbled in a good many sciences--geology, astronomy,
architecture, physiology, botany, natural history, and archaeology all
had their turn, and she certainly seemed to get a good deal of interest
and amusement out of them all. She announced to Clare, as a little
later they were seated on the study floor surrounded by pyramids of
books, that she intended to give her thoughts now to gardening and
agriculture.

'I have some delightful old books on horticulture, which I shall read
up,' she said enthusiastically; 'and there is an old Dutch writer
amongst them who gives the most minute directions for laying out a
flower and vegetable garden. I