ed. She felt very hungry, too, and when at length she
heard Pin calling, she jumped up and betrayed her hiding-place.

"Laura! Laura, where are you? Mother says to come to breakfast and not
be silly. The coach'll be here in an hour."

Taking hands the sisters ran to the house.

In the passage, Sarah was busy roping a battered tin box. With their
own hands the little boys had been allowed to paste on this a big sheet
of notepaper, which bore, in Mother's writing, the words:

Miss Laura Tweedle Rambotham The Ladies' College Melbourne.

Mother herself was standing at the breakfast-table cutting sandwiches.

"Come and eat your breakfast, child," was all she said at the moment.
"The tea's quite cold."

Laura sat down and fell to with appetite, but also with a side-glance
at the generous pile of bread and meat growing under Mother's hands.

"I shall never eat all that," she said ungraciously; it galled her
still to be considered a greedy child with an insatiable stomach.

"I know better than you do what you'll eat," said Mother. "You'll be
hungry enough by this evening I can tell you, not getting any dinner."

Pin's face fell at this prospect. "Oh, mother, won't she really get any
dinner?" she asked: and to her soft little heart going to school began
to seem one of the blackest experiences life held.

"Why, she'll be in the train, stupid, 'ow can she?" said Sarah. "Do you
think trains give you dinners?"

"Oh, mother, please cut ever such a lot!" begged Pin sniffing valiantly.

Laura began to feel somewhat moved herself at this solicitude, and
choked down a lump in her throat with a gulp of tea. But when Pin had
gone with Sarah to pick some nectarines, Mother's face grew stern, and
Laura's emotion passed.

"I feel more troubled about you than I can say, Laura. I don't know how
you'll ever get on in life--you're so disobedient and self-willed. It
would serve you very well right, I'm sure, for not coming this morning,
if I didn't give you a penny of pocket-money to take to school."

Laura had heard this threat before, and thought it wiser not to reply.
Gobbling up the rest of her breakfast she slipped away.

With the other children at her heels she made a round of the garden,
bidding good-bye to things and places. There were the two summer-houses
in which she had played house; in which she had cooked and eaten and
slept. There was the tall fir-tree with the rung-like branches by which
she had been accustomed to