ck.'

Jill jumped to her feet, and blushed a little. As Kit had predicted,
she found it much easier to get on with her cousins when she took them
'separately, or in pairs'; and she was not used yet to facing them all at
once. The sound of wheels outside gave her an excuse for escape, and she
put her arm hurriedly round Babs.

'Come upstairs and put on your hat,' she suggested, and the two girls
hastened out of the room.

Auntie Anna saw to it that the farewells were not prolonged, and Barbara
found herself whirled into the covered wagonette with her last words only
half said. Kit was allowed time to whisper a gruff apology for being cross
with her before tea, but the others had to follow her to the front door
to shout their good-byes after her.

'Don't get the blues because _we_ are not there!' cried Wilfred.

'I'll write great lots of times,' declared Robin, who was in tears. 'I
won't even wait for the lines to be ruled, Babs dear. You won't mind the
spelling, will you? 'Cause it saves so much time if you don't.'

'Cheer up!' was all Egbert said; and Barbara wondered if she was very
hard-hearted, because she was not half so wretched as they all expected
her to be. Peter even made her laugh outright, as he sprang on the step
of the carriage, and went a little way down the drive with them.

'Don't funk it, old girl!' he shouted through the window. 'And just send
for us, if anything goes wrong!'

'Be off with you!' said Auntie Anna, shutting up the window; and that was
the last that the Babe of the Berkeley family saw of the boys who had been
her only companions through life.

She had plenty to think about in her long drive in the dark; and Auntie
Anna was wise enough to leave her alone most of the time. A little more
than an hour later, however, when the carriage made a sharp turn and drove
through some gates, the old lady roused her by a touch on the arm.

'We are just there, little woman,' she said in her quick, abrupt way. 'Not
afraid, eh?'

'Oh no!' answered Barbara, smiling. 'I--I'm just excited.'

Mrs. Crofton kissed the eager little face, on which the light shone as
they approached the house.

'That's right,' she said, looking pleased. 'Always be a truthful little
girl, and don't mind if you find you are not like other people.'

Then the horses stopped, and a blaze of light shone down a flight of
steps to the carriage door; and Babs, feeling suddenly very small and
unimportant, in spite of the extr