! What a baby thing you are! You're more like four than
fourteen!"

"It pays," said Diana serenely, squatting cross-legged on her bed, while
Loveday's neat hands arranged her possessions. "If I were a sedate,
goody-goody, 'old-beyond-her-years', staid sort of a person, you'd never
spoil me as you do. I'll try to practise it if you like, though.
Anything to please you! How would this do?"

Diana's mobile face suddenly underwent a quick change. The corners of
her mouth were drawn down, her eyelids drooped, while her eyes were cast
upward in a sort of sanctimonious squint.

"Don't!" implored Loveday, almost hysterically. "Oh, suppose your face
were to stick like that! You'd look the most abominable little Pharisee.
I'd hate you!"

"You like your pixie-girl best? Then, that settles it! Now, if you ever
scold me again about anything, I'll put on the Pharisee face; so I warn
you. You've got to choose between them. Yes, I know I'm a handful--I
always have been--but, perhaps, it's good for you, Loveday mine:
develops your character, and makes you more patient and persevering,
and--and----"

"You're the cheekiest little imp on the face of the earth!" interrupted
Loveday. "Get up, this minute, and come and finish your own work. I've
something else to do besides unpack for you. If Miss Hampson comes and
finds my box still half full----"

"She'll say how slow you've been, and what a nice, tidy child Diana is!
Don't try to look 'proper', Loveday! It doesn't suit your style of
beauty. Yes, put my collars away, too, or I shall only crush them.
There! Very well done! First prize for order! I think you're absolutely
topping, if you ask me!"

All that evening, and all the next morning, Diana's spirits continued to
fizz. She might possibly have worked them off out-of-doors, but the
British climate was against her; once more the fells were swathed in
their familiar garments of mist, and the rain came pitter-pattering down
on the roof of Pendlemere Abbey, and falling from the eaves in a
monotonous drip, drip, drip. It was drawing afternoon, and promptly at
half-past two intermediates and juniors would be due in the studio to go
on with the various copies and models on which they were engaged. It was
now shortly after two o'clock, and the school was amusing itself for the
half-hour between meal-time and lessons. During that brief interval
Diana, so to speak, "popped her cork".

"Hallo, America! You're looking rather weedy, standing