lived to that age, and to have no better understanding! Letters
from the seaside did not tend to soothe the exile's discontent. It
seemed callous of the girls to expatiate on the joys of bathing,
fishing, and generally running wild, to one who was practising a lady-
like decorum in the society of an old lady over seventy years of age,
and although Dan kept his promise to the extent of a letter of two whole
sheets, he gave no hint of deploring Darsie's own absence. It was in
truth a dull, guide-booky epistle, all about stupid "places of interest"
in the neighbourhood, in which Darsie was frankly uninterested. All the
Roman remains in the world could not have counted at that moment against
one little word of friendly regret, but that word was not forthcoming,
and the effect of the missive was depressing, rather than the reverse.
Mother's letters contained little news, but were unusually loving--
wistfully, almost, as it were, _apologetically_ loving! The exile
realised that in moments of happy excitement, when brothers and sisters
were forgetful of her existence, a shadow would fall across mother's
face, and she would murmur softly, "_Poor_ little Darsie!" Darsie's own
eyes filled at the pathos of the thought. She was filled with
commiseration for her own hard plight... Father's letters were bracing.
No pity here; only encouragement and exhortation. "Remember, my dear,
a sacrifice grudgingly offered is no sacrifice at all. What is worth
doing, is worth doing well. I hope to hear that you are not only an
agreeable, but also a cheerful and cheering companion to your old aunt!"

Darsie's shoulders hitched impatiently. "Oh! Oh! Sounds like a copy-
book. _I_ could make headlines, too! Easy to talk when you're not
tried. Can't put an old head on young shoulders. Callous youth, and
crabbed age..."

Not that Aunt Maria was really crabbed. Irritable perhaps, peculiar
certainly, finicky and old-fashioned to a degree, yet with a certain
bedrock kindliness of nature which forbade the use of so hard a term as
_crabbed_. Since the date of the hair episode Darsie's admiration for
Lady Hayes's dignified self-control had been steadily on the increase.
She even admitted to her secret self that in time to come--far, far-off
time to come,--she would like to become like Aunt Maria in this respect
and cast aside her own impetuous, storm-tossed ways. At seventy one
_ought_ to be calm and slow to wrath, but at fifteen! Who