"Not worth while? Not when the children would adore it?"

"I didn't mean that. I daresay they'd like it well enough."

"Then what did you mean?"

"Something I can't tell you. Don't bother, Lesbia, you can't know
everything in this house. It's no use your putting a dado here. Perhaps
some day, who knows?--your stencils may come in useful on some other
walls."

Minnie spoke with a shade of embarrassment. Her young stepsister-in-law
was gazing at her critically.

"How you love mysteries," remarked Lesbia. "All I can say is that, if
you're thinking of removing, you'll find it a business to get another
house unless you buy it, and Paul said this morning that nothing would
induce him to buy property at the top tide of the market. The Morwoods
have been trying to remove for two years, and can't hear of a house
anywhere."

"The Morwoods' affairs have nothing to do with ours," remarked Minnie,
closing the conversation firmly.

It was a blow to Lesbia not to be allowed to try her skill at decorating
the nursery. She thought it highly unreasonable of Minnie. She
stencilled some of the animals on pieces of paper and fastened them
with drawing-pins on to the walls in a corner of the room, to show how
nice the effect would be, but the children's inquisitive little fingers
pulled at the edges of the paper and soon tore them down. In her
annoyance she confided the whole of the affair to Marion, who was
breezily sympathetic.

"How stupid and unenlightened!" raged her chum. "They ought to have been
only too pleased to have the nursery so improved. Your stencil work's
lovely. There isn't a girl in the school who can do it half so well.
I'll tell you what. I've got an idea! An absolute brain wave. The walls
of VA are colourwashed. Why don't you go to Miss Tatham and ask her to
let you stencil them? It would be a boon to the form."

"O-o-o-h! I daren't!"

"Why not? She's rubbed in self-expression and here you are wanting to
express yourself."

"So I am--in stencil work."

"I'll go with you to the study if you like."

"I wish you would. I'd never have the courage to march in alone. Suppose
she thinks it cool cheek and absolutely withers me?"

"Then you'll be a faded flower, a broken butterfly, a crushed worm,"
laughed Marion. "Come along. Nothing venture nothing win. I'll guarantee
Tatie won't eat you."

Miss Tatham, sitting in the sanctum of her study with a pile of exercise
books on the desk before her, gasped a littl