herself out, and running needless risks by riding breathlessly
across country on so stupid and frivolous an aim! Mrs Saxon was both
puzzled and disappointed, while Dreda expostulated in her usual violent
fashion.

"Rowena, how mad! How idiotic! What are you raving about! What's the
use of grumbling and growling because there's nothing to do, and no one
to see you, and then the moment anyone appears--such a dear, too, with
such sweet, twinkly eyes!--to behave like a cold-blooded frog, mincing
your words, and looking as if you were made of ice, and then saying you
won't go, when it's a chance of no end of fun, and seeing everyone there
is to be seen! Idiotic!"

"Dreda! Dreda, dear, really is it necessary to be quite so violent?"
Mrs Saxon shook her head in smiling reproach, and Rowena tilted her
chin in air, but Dreda refused to be suppressed.

"Oh, mum, dear, _let_ me speak as I like! We have to be so proper at
school. You can't say a word of slang while the govs. are about, and
ordinary language is so _tame_. You can't make a really good effect
with ordinary words. Suppose I said to Rowena: `Your conduct, my dear,
is inconsistent, with your sentiments as expressed in conversation,' she
wouldn't mind a bit, but when I call her a frog she's furious. Look how
she's wagging her head! You can always tell by that when she's in a
bait."

"Really, Dreda!" cried Rowena in her turn. She rose from her seat, and
sailed haughtily out of the room, disdaining to bandy words with so
outspoken a combatant. In truth, she herself was bitterly disappointed
in being forced--as she thought--to refuse Mr Seton's invitation, the
possibilities of which appealed to her even more strongly than to her
sister. To meet a party of young people, to wheel gaily along in the
brisk, keen air, laughing and jesting as in the old happy days; to
return tired and hungry to the hospitable scramble luncheon--to sit
around the fire rested and refreshed, feeling as if those few hours of
intimate association had been more successful in cementing friendships
than many months of ordinary association. Oh, how tempting _it_
sounded! What a blessed change from the level monotony of the last few
months! And she needs must give it up, and stay quietly at home,
darning stockings, or writing orders to the "Stores," because Maud's
blundering tongue has laid her dignity so low, that everything else must
needs be sacrificed to its preservation! _Rowena