r I'd have
given you a tip or two straight away. Thank goodness you're fairly in
favor with Rachel at any rate. Any one who starts by offending her has a
bad term. I don't envy Mabel Hughes. That girl will get a few
eye-openers before she's much older, and serve her right. She rooms with
you? Well, I'm sorry for you. I wish there was a spare bed in our
dormitory, but we're full up to overflowing. Now then, I've brought you
out by the side door to show you what we consider the best view of the
garden. Ah, I thought it would make your eyes pop out! It's _some_ view,
isn't it?"

The garden of the Villa Camellia was certainly one of the greatest
assets of the school, and to Irene, who had been transported straight
from the desolation of a London suburb in January, it seemed like a
vision of a different world. The long terrace, with its marble
balustrade, edged a high cliff that overtopped the sea, while at present
the setting sun was lighting up the white houses of the distant outline
of Naples, and was touching the purple slopes of Vesuvius with gold.
Pillars and archways formed a pergola, from which hung roses and
festoons of the trumpetflower; from the groves near at hand came the
sweet strong scent of orange blossoms, and the little favorites of an
English spring, forget-me-nots, pink daisies, and pansies, lifted
contented heads from the border below. In the basin of the great marble
fountain white arum lilies were blooming, geraniums trailed from tall
vases, and palms, bamboos, and other exotics backed the row of lemon
trees at the end of the paved walk. Here and there marble benches were
arranged round tables in specially constructed arbors.

"These are our summer classrooms," explained Peachy. "When it's
blazingly hot we do lessons here early in the mornings, and it's
ripping. No, we don't use them at this time of the year, because the
marble is cold to sit upon, and the garden is damp really, although it
looks so jolly. You should see it in a sirocco wind! You wouldn't want
to have classes outside then, you bet! It's luck you're in the
Transition form. If you'd been one of Miss Rodger's elect eleven, or one
of Miss Brewster's lambs, I'd have had to chum with you by stealth. I'd
have managed it somehow, of course, to please Dad, but it isn't done
here openly. School etiquette is like the law of the Medes and Persians.
We keep to our own forms. Hello! There's Sheila Yonge. Sheila! If you
can find any Camellia Buds t