Latin?"

"Probably not, but they could make preserves, and perfumes, and other
secrets of the still-room; and they embroidered the most beautiful
tapestries, if we are to judge from the specimens in the big
drawing-room. Young people were very severely brought up. They might
never sit without permission in the presence of their parents or
teachers, and they were beaten for the slightest offences. Don't you
remember that even poor Lady Jane Grey was punished with 'nips, bobs,
and pinches'; and little Edward VI had his whipping-boy, to receive the
blows which it was not considered seemly to bestow upon his own princely
person!"

"Had the other boy to be whipped for what the king had done? How
horribly unfair!" said Beryl Austen.

"Yes, their ideas of justice were rather different from ours. They would
have thought present-day children absolutely spoilt. The girls who
perhaps may have done lessons in this room three hundred years ago would
not learn them so easily and pleasantly as you are going to do this
morning. Fetch the geology books, Beryl. We must go on with modern work,
in spite of our ancient surroundings."

CHAPTER II

An Interesting Stranger

Among all Miss Russell's thirty pupils you could not have found two
stancher friends than Lindsay Hepburn and Cicely Chalmers, both of whom
were members of the third, or lowest, class.

Lindsay was a short, plump, fair, jolly-looking girl of twelve, with a
very energetic disposition; apt, according to Miss Frazer, to be
inconveniently lively and irrepressible in school, but a general
favourite in the playground.

Cicely, six months younger, was much more quiet and steady on the
surface, though her twinkling brown eyes belied her demurer manners, and
proclaimed her ready for anything in the shape of fun. She admired
Lindsay immensely, and copied her absolutely, being generally ready to
follow her through thick and thin, whatever scrapes might be the
consequence.

The pair shared a bedroom, and were so inseparable that Cicely was often
called Lindsay's shadow. That was an injustice, however; she had a
character of her own, though she might choose to merge it in her
friend's stronger personality. It is with these two, and their strange
experiences at the Manor, that my tale is chiefly concerned, for if it
had not been for Lindsay's enquiring mind, backed by Cicely's persistent
efforts, there might have been no story to tell.

This is how it all began.