of anything,
not even out of being ill."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THREATENING CLOUDS.

But Betty and Tony behaved extremely well. They escaped the measles,
and all risk of infection was over long before the end of term came--and
even a first term at school must come to an end some time.

Kitty at last had but seven more slips to tear off and seven more dates
to strike through, and for sheer pleasure she left them untouched.
Time did not need helping along now.

Then came the last day, when the boxes stood packed and strapped and
labelled, and a general air of holidays and freedom from rules pervaded
the whole house. Rhoda and Cicely Collins were leaving very early.
Rhoda wanted to go by the earliest train because the fares were slightly
lower. Rhoda was of a saving disposition. It always gave her the
greatest pleasure to be able to economize in any way, and her stores of
twine and paper, old corks, scraps of writing-paper, old pens, and other
things, afforded food for endless jokes amongst the rest of the girls.
Cicely, on the other hand, was the exact opposite of her sister; but
being the younger, and less masterful, she gave in to Rhoda, and on the
day they were to go home she rose, at Rhoda's command, from her bed at
six o'clock, very unwillingly though, for the saving of threepence on
her journey was nothing to Cicely in comparison to the discomfort of
rising early.

Hope Carey had gone home some weeks before, having fretted herself ill
with anxiety about her mother. Kitty and Pamela were to wait until the
eleven o'clock train, for Dan, who broke up on the same day, could join
them then at their station, and they could all travel down together.
It was not nearly eleven when they reached the station; but how could
they stay quietly in the dull, deserted house waiting for the hours to
go by? Miss Hammond saw that it was too much to expect of them, so took
them down very early; for a railway station, with its bustle and life,
is a capital place for making time pass.

"It all seems too lovely to be real," sighed Kitty happily. "To be
going home, to be meeting Dan, to be travelling by ourselves, and to
have no lessons for more than three weeks! It seems too much happiness
all at once, and I am afraid I shall wake up presently and find it a
dream, as I so often have. I understand now what Dan meant by saying it
was almost worth going away to have the going home. I do think,
though," with sudden alarm, "th