along without
incurring any specially severe reproof from her teachers. Though I loved
her as my cousin, I felt she occupied quite a different place in my
heart from my darling Cathy. It is perhaps only possible to have one
very dearest friend, and while Cathy seemed to win all my love and
admiration, and to appeal to everything that was highest and best in me,
Lucy's tastes were based so much on the lines of Aunt Agatha that I
found we had little in common. I saw less of her now than ever, for,
Mary having come to The Hollies this term, Mrs. Marshall had arranged
for the sisters to sleep together, while to my great delight I was
allowed to share a vacant bedroom with Cathy. We moved our household
goods into our new quarters with much noise and chattering. My case of
South American butterflies was accorded the place of honour over the
chimney-piece, together with the portrait of my father; the brush which
Cathy had won at the Everton Meet hung proudly over her wash-stand; my
views of San Carlos were distributed about the walls; while photos of
Marshlands and the Winstanley family in every conceivable position
adorned our chests-of-drawers and dressing-table.

"I feel as if we were relations now you have come to share my room,"
said Cathy. "I've always longed for a younger sister, so I'm going to
adopt you, Philippa dear, and try to believe that you're really and
truly mine. You haven't any mother of your own, so I shall put _my_
mother's photo in the middle of the dressing-table that she may belong
to us both. She has always called you her second little daughter."

I found the work in my new class taxed my exertions to the uttermost.
Mrs. Marshall had a very high standard as to what should be required
from girls of our age, and it was only with the greatest difficulty I
was able to keep up to it. Without Cathy's help I must most certainly
have failed. She was a true friend in need. She would patiently go over
my preparation with me, explaining difficult rules, repeating dates and
vocabularies again and again to fix them in my memory, or showing me so
clearly and concisely the reasons for the various problems in
mathematics, that I felt I could learn more easily from her than from
our teachers. My one haunting fear was that Mrs. Marshall should
consider me below the level of the class and should send me down again
into the fourth, for to be thus banished from Cathy seemed the worst
that fate could hold in store for me.