She read them with a sinking of heart which she could not account for--

"MY DEAR HETTY,--Your young companions will make the house quite
gay for you. I shall, therefore, take the opportunity of going from
home for a few days. I will send you a line to let you know when
you may expect me back.--Your affectionate father, JOHN THORNTON.

"P.S.--I shall have left before you are down in the morning. Give
my love to Nan, and wish Miss Forest good-bye for me. By the way,
she is interested in Australia, so will you show her where Henry
Kingsley's novels are to be found in the library?"

Nan, who had been peeping over Hester's shoulder while she was reading,
now suddenly clapped her hands, shouted "hurrah" at the top of her
voice, and, running up to Annie, began to waltz round and round the
breakfast-table with her.

"Oh, oh!" she exclaimed, "then little girls _may_ be heard as well as
seen. Annie, there are two proverbs which are the bane of my life. I
wonder dad has not had them both illuminated and framed and hung up in
my nursery. One of them is: 'Little girls should be seen and not heard.'
What a detestable old prig the person must have been who invented that
proverb! I ask you, Annie, what would life be without little girls and
their chatter? The other proverb is nearly as objectionable. This is it:
'Make a page of your own age.' According to dad, that only applies to
little girls, and it means that they must always be fagging round,
hunting for slippers and spectacles and newspapers and books for the
older people who are past the age for paging, and that no one is ever to
wait on _them_, however tired or however disinclined to stir they may
happen to be. Now there'll be no one to make me page, and no one to keep
me silent. Oh, hurrah, hurrah, hurrah! what a dear old dad to absent
himself in this obliging manner."

"For my part, I am very sorry," said Annie, for Hester had passed her on
the letter to read.

Hester said nothing, and breakfast began, Nan wasting as usual a
prodigal amount of energy and spirits even over the operation of eating,
Hester looking a little pale and a little thoughtful, Annie in a state
of suppressed high spirits, which a slight awe which she still felt at
times for Hester Thornton kept rather in check.

CHAPTER IV.

THE COLTS--ROBIN AND JOE.

The Towers was situated exactly two miles away from the Grange. It was a
large, old house, with