and
substituted Agnes and Elsie for themselves in the next contingent of
guests.

"You'll go later on," consoled Peachy. "Miss Rodgers is really very
decent in that way. She'll see that you get your turn once in a term at
any rate. Last time I went we had hot brown scones and molasses. Oh,
they were good! There! I oughtn't to have told you that when your turn's
off. Never mind. It will be something to look forward to. We always play
paper games there, and they're _such_ fun. There I am again! Well, if
you went to-day it would be over and done with by to-morrow, and it's
still all to come. That's one way of taking it."

"Oh, it's all very well to moralize!" grumped Lorna, who was feeling
thoroughly cross. "It's easy enough to count up other people's
blessings. I'm a blighted blossom!"

"Poor little thing!
She lived all the winter
And died in the spring,"

quoted Peachy with an extra wide grin. "Cheer up! Don't you realize
it's only ten days to half-term? Oh, do, for goodness' sake, look less
like a statue of melancholy! Do you know, child, that you're getting
permanent wrinkles along that forehead of yours, and it makes you more
like fifty than fifteen. You're too sedate. That's what's the matter
with you, Lorna Carson! It's a fault that ought to be overcome. Copy
Delia and me. We know how to enjoy ourselves. There--my lecture is over
and now let's talk of earthquakes."

"It's all very well for _you_, you've got everything you want," murmured
Lorna bitterly under her breath. "Some people haven't half the luck, and
it's hard to be content with a short allowance and pretend you're the
same as every one else. It can't always be done."

She turned away as she said it, so Peachy only caught the sound of a
grumble and did not hear the actual words. Had she done so she might
possibly have exhibited more sympathy, for she was a very kind-hearted
girl. Neither she nor anybody at the Villa Camellia understood Lorna in
the least. So far their classmate had been somewhat of a chestnut-bur,
and nobody in the Transition had ever penetrated her husk of reserve.
There is generally a reason for most things in life, if we could only
know it, and poor Lorna's morose and hermit attitude at school was
really the result of matters at home. To get into her innermost
confidence we must follow her to Naples on her half-term holiday and see
for ourselves the peculiar circumstances amid which she had been pl