e only looked in to see how you were getting on. We thought you'd be
turtle-doving."

"We're playing tennis."

"So I see. We don't want to butt in. Just came to find the flags flying
that's all." (With a grimace at Lesbia.) "We _do_ apologize. Sorry to be
on the earth. Or rather on the palings. Can't hold up any longer.
Ta-ta!"

Ermie disappeared with a sudden drop, followed by Cissie and Aldora. To
judge from the sound of footsteps they ran hurriedly away down the lane.
Lesbia looked relieved. She did not want Regina to realize what fun the
girls made of her infatuation. She was so deadly in earnest about
everything that it seemed a shame to tease her.

"Besides which she might think I had been cackling to them and put them
up to coming," thought Lesbia, turning hot at the notion. "I'll
spifflicate those three on Monday, when I catch them. It was beastly
cheek to track me here just to try and rag. They ought to know better
manners, and I shall tell them so. Won't I pitch into them just! I'll
make them absolutely shrivel!"

But aloud she simply said very calmly:

"It's your serve, Regina. We were thirty--forty. _Do_ let us try and
finish this set before tea if we can."

CHAPTER XIII

In Luck's Way

Ever since the Easter holidays at Tunbury, and her apprenticeship to Art
in Mr. Stockton's studio, Lesbia had been hankering for an oil
paint-box. She wanted it desperately, as any craftsman, with creative
instinct, longs for the tools of his trade. She thought about it in bed
at nights, when she lay awake, and in imagination squeezed the
delightful tubes on to her palette and mixed subtle combinations of soft
shades. There seemed, to her particular bent, so many more possibilities
in oils than in water-colour. To be sure, her cheap little student's box
had never given the latter medium a fair trial, but she considered the
possession of even Winsor and Newton's best equipment of half-pans and
sables could not compete with the satisfaction of dabbing solid masses
of paint on a canvas with stiff hog-hair brushes.

"I don't like finicking work," she decided. "Give me something strong
and broad, that I can dash away at and go ahead with. I'd rather be an
Impressionist than a Pre-Raphaelite any day. Scene-painting's more in
my line than miniatures. Oh dear! I wish all the powers in earth and air
would show me how to get a decent paint-box."

She had approached Marion with a view to an exchange, but her friend