turned away, leaving Lilias to
shake her head over the decay of family feeling, and the degeneracy of
younger sisters.

It was perhaps Carmel's rendering of the Pastorale dance that suggested
to Miss Walters a scheme of entertainment for the garden fete which the
girls were to give in aid of the "Homes for Waifs and Strays." She
decided that the garden of Chilcombe Hall would make an excellent
background for some classic representations, and that nothing could be
prettier than old Greek costumes. By a stroke of great good luck she
managed to engage Miss Adams, a former pupil who had been studying
classic dancing in Paris, to come for a few weeks and train the
performers. Miss Adams was a tremendous enthusiast, and arrived full of
ideas which she was burning to teach to the school. The girls were
delighted with her methods. It was quite a new phase of dancing to trip
barefooted on the lawn, holding up garlands of flowers. They liked the
exercises which she gave them for the cultivation of grace, and
practised classic attitudes on all occasions, with more or less success.

"You go about the school so exactly like Minerva!" complained Noreen to
Phillida, rather dismayed by the sudden change in her lively friend from
bounding spirits to a statuesque pose. "Need you always walk as if you
were thinking of the shape of your ankles?"

Phillida shook her head carefully, so as not to disarrange the Greek
fillet she was wearing.

"It's been too hot lately to tear round and play tennis. I think, too,
that what Miss Adams says is quite right. English girls _are_ lacking in
grace and dignity. Just look at the way Ida and Joyce are flopping about
now. An artist would have fits to see them!"

"Well, of course they're not sitting for their portraits. Oh yes! I love
dancing, but I don't want to worry about being graceful all day long!"

"That's just the point, though," persisted Phillida, who was a zealous
convert. "The dances are to make you graceful _always_. You so get into
the poetry of motion that it's quite impossible for you ever to flop
again!"

"Is it? Oh, Kafoozalum!" burbled Noreen, exploding into a series of
chuckles. "'She never flopped again!' We ought to make a parody on that
from the poem of 'The White Ship.'

"Miss Adams to the school came down,
The classic wave rolled on:
And what was cricket's latest score
To those who danced alone?

"From dawn they practised attitudes
Un