ut them
into long, thin, vertical slices, and laid these across each other in
the form of a small mat between sheets of blotting paper. This was next
squeezed through a wringing-machine to rid it of superfluous moisture,
then placed under a heavy weight, in the manner of pressing flowers.
When at last it was dry, the alternate layers of the papyrus had
adhered together and amalgamated into a substance identical with the old
Egyptian parchment, though much coarser and rougher in quality. The
girls were delighted with it. They borrowed a book on Egypt from Mr.
Greville's library, and copied little pictures of the Sphinx, scarabs,
Ra, the Sun god, and other appropriate bits, painting them in bold
colors on their pieces of parchment, and feeling as if they had gone
back a few thousand years in history, and were dwellers in Memphis or
some other great city on the banks of the Nile. They designed special
ones for Miss Walters, Miss Hardy, and Miss Herbert, and smaller
offerings for Gowan, Bertha, Phillida, Noreen, and others of their
friends at Chilcombe Hall. Papyrus, indeed, became the rage at Casa
Bianca. All the various cousins vied with one another in making the
choicest specimens. They wrote letters to each other upon it, rolling up
the parchments and tying them with ribbons in the manner of ancient
scribes. Perhaps the whitest and best welded sheet of all was one made
by Mr. Stacey, who turned out to be so clever at the new craze that he
jokingly declared he must be a priest of some Egyptian temple come to
life again. He used a reed pen, and got some very happy effects in
hieroglyphs, puzzling out the names of each of the company in the
curious picture writing of the days of the Pharaohs who reared the
pyramids.

"Will you take us some day to see the Nile?" asked Lilias, happy in the
possession of her name neatly pictured on the specially white sheet of
papyrus, with a lotus bloom, the lily of Egypt, painted underneath. "You
know Captain Porter said we ought to go to Alexandria!"

"Nothing would please me better, if the fates willed it!" smiled Mr.
Stacey.

"We'll go in a party, and hire a boat up the Nile, and take all the
Grevilles with us, specially Douglas," declared Dulcie. "I count them my
cousins too. Don't you, Everard?"

"Right-o!" laughed Everard. "Cousins by all manner of means let them
be!" ("Though I don't bargain to include the Trapani family among our
new relations!" he added softly to himself, half