sail them across the reservoir; and we go long walks on the moors; and
we've a little hut at the end of the garden, with a stove in it where
we cook things. We make the most glorious toffee! I wouldn't change my
holidays for anybody else's!"

"They do sound nice," said Nina. "I go about with my sisters. They're
quite grown up, and they take me to pay calls. Then my brother's at
home as well, and he and I have fun together. I'm asked to plenty of
parties, but Mother is so terribly afraid of my catching cold that I
miss quite half of them. I don't always go to the pantomime, because
of draughts. I like the summer holidays best, when we stay at the
seaside. Jessie, you haven't said yet."

"I don't know what to tell," said Jessie, who was not gifted with
great powers of description.

"Oh, but you must say something! I don't suppose you spend the
holidays in bed."

"Well, no!" said Jessie, laughing. "Though I did once, when I had
scarlet fever. I go walks with my brother, and we help to decorate the
church, and people ask us to tea. I think that's all."

"I still think mine are the nicest," said Hazel. "Linda, we want
yours."

"We live quite in the country," said Linda. "The carol singers come on
Christmas Eve, and we ask them in and give them hot coffee. There's a
big pond, where we skate if it freezes hard enough, and once, when
there was very deep snow, we had out our sledge. Sometimes we stay
with Granny in London, and then we go to the pantomime and the circus,
and have a lovely time. We've got a new puppy, and I want to teach him
some tricks these holidays. Now, Sylvia, you're the last."

"I've nobody to do anything with," said Sylvia rather wistfully,
almost forgetting, in listening to the glowing accounts of the others,
how she had once said she did not wish for young companions. "Not at
home at any rate; but of course there are parties, and we have people
to tea. I just read and paint, and do things by myself."

The girls appeared to consider this must be very slow, and pitied
Sylvia to such an extent that she was quite surprised.

"I'm perfectly happy," she remonstrated.

"But it can't be so nice as having brothers and sisters," said Marian
in her decisive manner. "I should miss our little ones most
dreadfully, and Fred and Larry too. Holidays wouldn't be holidays
without seeing them. I think it must be wretched to be an only child."

Talking of the holidays did not make them come any the faster, and