ur out her grievance about the faithless
Nicky.

"He said he had an engagement," put in Ishmael, seeing Georgie's face
harden.

"Oh, of course," she retorted, "and we can guess what it is...." She
broke off as Ishmael made a warning sign towards the children. "Anyway,
I think it's too bad of him to promise the children to take them out and
then not to do it," she insisted. "That's the third time he's done that
lately, and I know how they were looking forward to it. They came home
from school half an hour earlier on purpose."

Lissa and Ruth went to a small private school, whose scholars only
consisted of the half-dozen children of the local gentry, and which was
held at the village. It was called "school," and Lissa and Ruth felt
very proud of going to it, but in reality it was no more than going out
to a governess one shared with other girls instead of having a governess
to oneself at home. Ruth ran to her father and clung to his knee
heavily; he stroked her shock of brown hair and said: "Cheer up, little
Piggy-widden"--which was his pet name for her, partly because she was
the youngest and smallest of the family, partly because she was so fat,
and in Cornwall the "piggy-widden" is the name for the smallest of the
litter.

Lissa still stormed, but Georgie, with one of the sudden little gusts of
temper to which she had always been liable, swept on to her and bade her
be quiet at once and have a little self-control. She seized a child in
each hand and whirled them out of the room with instructions to go to
Nanny and have their faces washed. Then she came back to Ishmael and
perched herself on the arm of his chair. She looked very young at the
moment, for her attitude was of the Georgie of old days, and her round
face was screwed up in an expression of mock-penitence as she rumpled
his hair. She would have looked younger if the fashions had been kinder,
but the beginning of the 'nineties was not a gracious period for women's
dress. The sweep of the crinoline, the piquancy of the fluted draperies
and deliciously absurd bustle, had alike been lost; in their stead
reigned serge and cloth gowns that buttoned rigidly and had high stiff
little collars. Braid meandered over Georgie's chest on either side of
the buttons, and her pretty round neck was hidden and her cheeks made to
seem coarse by the stiff collar, while her plump arms looked as though
stuck on like those of a doll in their sleeves of black cloth which
contrast