spend all their holidays at school--that was why Jerry
thought it would be nice to invite them here. I daresay it will be very
nice for _them_, but _I_ think it will quite spoil the holidays for
_us_.'

'Come, Sharley,' said her mother, 'you must not be selfish.'

'What are the boys' Christian names?' asked grandmamma.

'Harry and Lindsay,' Sharley replied.

Grandmamma shook her head.

'No,' she said, as if thinking aloud, 'I never heard those names in the
branch of the Vandeleurs I am connected with.'

CHAPTER VI

'WAVING VIEW'

I was only eight years old at the time we made the acquaintance of the
family at Moor Court. It may seem strange and unlikely that I should
remember so clearly all that happened when we first got to know them,
but even though I was so young at the time I _do_ recollect all about it
very well.

For it was so new to me that it made a great impression.

Till then I had never had any real companions; as I have said already, I
had scarcely ever had a meal out of our own house. It was like the
opening of a new world to me.

But I have asked grandmamma about a few things which she remembers more
exactly than I do. Especially about the Vandeleur boys, I mean about
what was said of them. But for things that happened afterwards I daresay
I should never have thought of this again, though grandmamma did not
forget about it. She told me over quite lately everything that had
passed at that birthday tea.

The months, and indeed the years that followed that first happy day at
Moor Court seem to me now, on looking back upon them, a good deal mixed
up together--till, that is to say, a change, a melancholy one for me,
came over my happy friendship with the Nestor children.

This change, however, did not come for fully three years, and these
three years were very bright and sunny ones. Sharley and her sisters
continued all that time to be my grandmamma's pupils--winter and summer,
all the year round, except for some weeks of holiday at Christmas, and a
rather longer time in the autumn, when the Nestors generally went to the
sea-side for a change; unless the weather was terribly bad or stormy,
twice a week they either walked over with a maid, or the governess-cart
drawn by the fat pony made its appearance at the end of our path.
Sometimes the little groom went on into the village if there were any
messages, sometimes if it was cold he drove as far as the farm at the
foot of the hill, where