on the spot if Lady Caroline entered the front
door.

"Well, Janetta," she said, as she advanced towards her stepdaughter and
presented one faded cheek to be kissed, "so your grand friends have
brought you home! Of course they wouldn't come in; I did not expect
them, I am sure. Come into the front room--and children, don't crowd so;
your sister will speak to you by-and-bye."

"Oh, no, let me kiss them now," said Janetta, who was receiving a series
of affectionate hugs that went far to blind her eyes to the general
deficiency of orderliness and beauty in the house to which she had come.
"Oh, darlings, I am so glad to see you again! Joey, how you have grown!
And Tiny isn't Tiny any longer! Georgie, you have been plaiting your
hair! And here are Curly and Jinks! But where is Nora?"

"Upstairs, curling her hair," shouted the child who was known by the
name of Jinks. While Georgie, a well-grown girl of thirteen, added in a
lower tone,

"She would not come down until the Court people had gone. She said _she_
didn't want to be patronized."

Janetta colored, and turned away. Meanwhile Mrs. Colwyn had dropped into
the nearest arm-chair, and Mr. Colwyn strayed in and out of the room
with the expression of a dog that has lost its master. Georgie hung upon
Janetta's arm, and the younger children either clung to their elder
sister, or stared at her with round eyes and their fingers in their
mouths. Janetta felt uncomfortably conscious of being more than usually
interesting to them all. Joe, the eldest boy, a dusty lad of fourteen,
all legs and arms, favored her with a broad grin expressive of delight,
which his sister did not understand. It was Tiny, the most gentle and
delicate of the tribe, who let in a little light on the subject.

"Did they send you away from school for being naughty?" she asked, with
a grave look into Janetta's face.

A chuckle from Joey, and a giggle from Georgie, were instantly repressed
by Mr. Colwyn's frown and Mrs. Colwyn's acid remonstrance.

"What are you thinking of, children? Sister is never naughty. We do not
yet quite understand why she has left Miss Polehampton's so suddenly,
but of course she has some good reason. She'll explain it, no doubt, to
her papa and me. Miss Polehampton has been a great deal put out about it
all, and has written a long letter to your papa, Janetta; and, indeed,
it seems to _me_ as if it would have been more becoming if you had kept
to your own place and not tried