ry advantages.

Wygate School was the only private school in the district, and was
regarded respectfully by the neighbourhood. So many "undesirables" were
precluded from its benefits, by its charge of one guinea a quarter.

John Brown, the new boy, whose age it appeared was thirteen years, was
the eldest pupil in the school, and Floss Jones, who was four, was the
baby.

The neighbourhood frequently moaned that there was no private school for
those of riper years--fifteen and sixteen or so; but in some cases it
called in a governess, in others it forewent its dignity and adopted the
public school, and in others again it sent its young folk over the water
to Sydney--a matter of three miles or more.

But the North Shore Highlands was at this time uncatered for by the
tramway authorities. An old coach ran twice daily from Willoughby to the
steamer--a morning trip and an evening-tide one--there and back. It was
largely patronized by the Chinese, and parents of the artisan class
hesitated and frequently refused to allow their young folk to make the
journey.

The three young Bruces went every day across a beaten bush track, from
their weather-board cottage home, past the big iron gates of Dene Hall,
a house built of grey stone in the early days of the colony, where their
irascible grandsire dwelt, up a red dusty road to the little
school-house on the hill.

And special terms were arranged for them because they were three--Cyril,
and Elizabeth the twins, and six-year-old Nancy.

They had always been three. For even in the days when Cyril and
Elizabeth had belonged to the baby class there had been Dorothea,
Dorothea who was sixteen and quite old now, who was a weekly boarder in
a fashionable Sydney school (for a ridiculously small quarterly fee).

And when Dorothea had left Wygate School little Nancy's hand had been
put into Elizabeth's and she too had taken the long red road to school.
And after Nancy there was still a wee toddler who, it was said, would
make the number up to three again when Cyril went to a "real" boy's
school.

CHAPTER II

THE PEARL SEEKERS

They were round the corner and away from school--Cyril, Elizabeth and
Nancy. Behind them were all the trials and vexations of the day, among
which may be counted Mrs. Sharman, Mr. Sharman--and John Brown.

Cyril spoke with awe of John Brown's big hands and feet, and looked over
his shoulder as he spoke. For that small hope of the Bruces had in the