it was arranged that he could 'put up' for an
hour or two, sometimes in warm summer days the pony-cart just waited
where it was.

Often, once a fortnight or so at least, in the fine season, I made one
of the party on the little girls' return home. How we all managed to
squeeze into the cart, or how old Bunch managed to take us all home
without coming to grief on the way, I am sure I can't say.

I only know we _did_ manage it, and so did he. For he is still alive and
well, and no doubt 'ready to tell the story,' if he could speak.

We never seemed to be ill in those days. The Nestor children were no
doubt very strong, and I grew much stronger. Then Middlemoor is such a
splendidly healthy place.

I have some misty recollections of Nan and Vallie having the measles,
and a doubt arising as to whether I had not got it too. But if it was
measles it did not seem worse than a cold, and we were soon all out and
about again, as merry as ever.

And grandmamma seemed to grow younger during those years. Her mind was
more at rest for the time, for the steady payment she received for the
girls' French lessons made all the difference in our little income,
between being comfortable, with a small extra in case of need, and
being only _just_ able to make both ends meet with a great deal of
tugging. And grandmamma was happy about taking the money, for it was
well earned; Sharley and the others made such good progress in French
and after a little while in German also, even though Nan was by nature
rather slow and Vallie dreadfully flighty, and not at all good at giving
her attention.

But she _was_ so sweet! I never saw any one so sweet as Vallie, when she
had been found fault with and was sorry; the tears used to come up into
her big brown eyes very slowly and stay there, making them look like
velvety pansies with dewdrops in them.

Somehow Sharley always seemed the _most_ my friend, though she was a
good deal older. Perhaps it was through having known her the first, and
partly, I daresay, because in _some_ ways I was old for my age.

The big brother Gerard came home for his holidays three times a year. He
was a very nice boy, I am sure, but I did not get to know him well, and
I had rather a grudge at him. For when he was at Moor Court I seemed to
see so much less of Sharley. It wasn't her fault. She was not a
changeable girl at all, but Jerry had always been accustomed to having
her a great deal with him in his holidays, as she