ter, which seemed to
be increasing rather than diminishing, for if there was an unusual lull
in the noise, some one would ask Maud if her run had broken her or her
stick, and that would be sufficient to start them all off again.

The noise they all made even at that distance was tremendous, but The
Cedars was evidently a house to which uproarious mirth was no novelty,
for Martin, by whom Margaret had brushed in her hasty flight from the
billiard-room, exhibited no signs of surprise at the sound of it.

In the hall, simply because she did not know where to go next, Margaret
came to a pause in her headlong flight, and, sinking on to a chair,
covered her face with her hands. Even though the length of the whole
house separated her now from the billiard-room, she had not escaped from
the sound of the shouts and squeals to which her remarks had given rise,
for fresh peals were still ringing out with unabated force.

"Oh, will they ever stop laughing at me!" Margaret said half-aloud, in
a tone that was fraught with extreme misery. "Oh, how I wish I had never
come here! And I had been so looking forward to being friends with girls
and boys of my own age. Oh, how shall I bear it if they go on laughing at
me for days and days!"

"Oh, but they won't go on for as long as that, no matter how good the
joke. They'll have a dozen fresh jokes by this time to-morrow, and this
one will be forgotten. Unless, of course, it was an extra good one. By
the way, what was the joke? You are Miss Carson, aren't you? I am Nancy
Green. Take a chocolate and tell me all about it."

Margaret, who had believed herself to be alone, turned in surprise as
this unexpected voice fell on her ears, and glanced about her in a
startled fashion until, in a cosy nook close to her and half hidden by a
tall palm and a screen, she saw a big Chesterfield couch on which a girl
was stretched full length, with a book in one hand and a box of
chocolates in the other.

"I do not exactly know what is making them laugh," Margaret said,
declining the chocolates with an unhappy shake of her head. "They were
playing billiards, and Miss Danvers said she had run away and broken
something, and I hoped she was not hurt, and then they all began to
laugh, and have not stopped yet," she added resentfully, as a fresh peal
of laughter reached her ears. "And you are laughing, too," she said,
glancing at Nancy's twitching lips.

"Only a very little," Nancy said hastily, "and it was