hat hurried last goodbye, that final hug as Mrs. Lindsay
kissed her again and again and hastened down the steps into the cab,
the rumble of the departing wheels, and the sudden sense that she was
left alone in a school of more than thirty girls, and that she did not
yet know one of them even by name. An overwhelming rush of
homesickness swept over her, so bitter in its force that she almost
cried out with the intensity of the pain; she stood still in the hall
with the dazed expression of one newly awakened from a dream, turning
a deaf ear to Miss Kaye's well-meant efforts at consolation, and
longing only for some safe retreat where she might escape to have a
little private weep, out of reach of watching eyes. Seeing the
mistress pause to speak to a teacher who came at that instant from the
dining-room, she seized the opportunity, and dived into the
drawing-room, where she ran to the window to catch the last glimpse of
the coachman's hat as he drove through the gate, and disappeared
behind the trees and bushes which bordered the road. Miss Kaye did not
follow her; perhaps long experience had taught her that it was
sometimes best to leave new girls judiciously alone, and for a few
minutes she stood playing absently with the tassel of the blind, and
struggling hard to keep back her rising tears. Why had she been
brought to school? Why had she not begged her mother to take her home
with her? It was cruel to send her away. It was all Aunt Louisa's
doing, she was sure. She could never make herself happy, and she
should write to-night to her father and tell him so. Perhaps he might
relent and come to fetch her.

"I shall be the most miserable girl in the school," she said to
herself. "Far worse than Florence in _The New Pupil_; she only 'shed a
few tears', and I'm going to cry quarts, I know I am."

She took out her handkerchief ready for the expected deluge, but life
is often very different from what we propose, and before she had time
to do more than wipe away the first scalding drop she was startled by
a voice at her elbow. Turning round hastily she found herself face to
face with the little girl who had run to the top of the bank to peep
at her as she came up the drive, and who now stood smiling in a
particularly friendly fashion.

"Miss Kaye has sent me to take you to the playroom," she said. "We've
just finished tea. You've had yours, haven't you? So come along."

"What's your name?" asked Sylvia, stuffing her handke