modate you. I'm going to start
a Sensation Bureau. Excitements guaranteed. Terms cash, or monthly
instalments. You pay your money, and you take your choice. Address: Miss
Sullivan, The Gables. Cheques and postal orders must be crossed."

The girls sniggered, for Patsie was at what they were wont to call her
"Patsiest". At school she supplied the place of public entertainer. Her
favourite role was that of the jester, with cap and bells.

"I really _have_ got a brain-wave, though," she rattled on. "I agree
with Viv. Things at present are just about as dull and unromantic as
they could possibly be. Girls don't have any fun as they had in the
Middle Ages, or even in Jane Austen's times. My great-grandmother ran
away from school to Gretna Green, but it's never done now. Well, the
next best thing to real adventures is making them up. That's where my
Sensation Bureau comes in. Here's Vivien pining for romance. Well, I'm
prepared to give it to her hot and strong. I'm going to write her a
letter every day from 'Jack', and post it inside the hollow tree in the
garden. She can get and post hers there too, if she likes. Will you
trade letters, Viv.? It'll be a stunt!"

"If you'll write the first," agreed Vivien, brightening up.

"Of course your 'Jack' will write first to his little 'Forget-me-not'!"
laughed Patsie.

Patsie was gifted with a most lively imagination, and some talent for
writing. Her tastes ran on the lines of cheap novelettes. She evolved a
supposititious hero for Vivien, and began a series of epistles couched
in exceedingly ardent terms. All the most extravagant nonsense that she
could invent was scribbled in the letters, which, addressed simply to
"Forget-me-not", were posted inside the hollow of an old ash-tree at the
bottom of the school garden. Vivien shared the effusions with her
friends, and they had tremendous fun over them in a corner of the
cloak-room. They helped her to concoct replies. The imaginary romance
afforded them extreme entertainment. It was as exciting as writing a
novel. They worked it through all sorts of interesting stages--hope,
despair, and lovers' quarrels--till it culminated in a suggested
elopement. Patsie really outdid herself sometimes in the brilliancy of
her composition. "Jack" had developed a floweriness of style and a knack
of describing his bold adventures that raised him to the rank of a
cinema hero. The girls used to wait for his letters with as keen an
anticipation as for