with rapture. The expression on her face made them
laugh once more. Then she gave a kind of war-whoop that might have been
heard in the schoolroom, and bounded again towards the door. 'I simply
can't bear it another minute,' she gasped. 'I _must_ go and tell the boys.'

'Bear it just one more minute, and hear what else I have to say,' begged
Auntie Anna, raising herself with the help of her stick, and walking
slowly after her excited little niece. 'Can you ride bicycles, all of you?'

The child shook her head. 'Only Egbert,' she said; 'and that is because
he stayed with a chap, last holidays, who lent him one. Bicycles are too
jolly expensive for this family, you know,' she added quaintly.

Auntie Anna stood still and pointed the blue-knobbed cane impressively at
the child, who stood waiting. 'What do you say to a bicycle apiece all
round,' she began, 'and----'

But Barbara did not wait to say anything. Back along the hall she
scampered with all her might, and flung herself panting into the
schoolroom. She burst out at once with a rapturous medley of news.

'Boys, boys!' she shouted at the top of her voice; 'the dragon isn't
a dragon, she's like a fairy godmother out of a story-book! And she's
going to send me to the adopted kid's school, and everybody is going to
live at Crofts till father comes back, and there's going to be bicycles
_all round_--no waiting 'cause you're the youngest, Bobbin!--and----'

Suddenly she paused and stammered, and paused again. Finally, she stood
silent and uncomfortable, with the excitement and the thrill all gone
out of her. She had quite forgotten Jill; and Jill, enthroned in the one
arm-chair, with the one cushion at her back and the one footstool at her
feet, was looking as though she was not there to be forgotten.

'I've just been telling the boys all about it,' she remarked.

Barbara stared. It put the finishing touch to her distrust of Jill, that
she should have told anything to the boys--_her_ boys--before she had time
to tell them herself.

'I--I think it's a shame!' she exclaimed hotly, and she bit her lip to
keep from crying.

'Hullo, Babe! What's up?' asked Peter, in surprise.

Jill slipped out of the arm-chair, and laid her hand on the child's
shoulder. 'I'm so sorry, Babs,' she began softly; 'I really didn't
know----'

Barbara looked up at her doubtfully. The tone was kind, but then, why
did she go on smiling in that irritating way? 'You don't understand,'
she sai