"How can I tell? I suppose so."

"I have my doubts," said Lottie sagely. "Why should they be? There must be
something queer, you know, or why doesn't that stupid old man at
Brackenhill treat Percival as the eldest? Well, good-night." And Lottie
went off, half saying, half singing, "Who killed Cock Robin? I, said the
Sparrow--with my bow and arrow." And with a triumphant outburst of "_I_
killed Cock Robin!" she banged the door after her.

There was a pause. Then Addie said, "Seventeen to-morrow! Mamma, Lottie
really is grown-up now."

"Is she?" Mrs. Blake replied doubtfully. "Time she should be, I'm sure."

Lottie had been a sore trial to her mother. Addie was pretty as a child,
tolerably presentable even at her most awkward age, glided gradually into
girlhood and beauty, and finally "came out" completely to Mrs. Blake's
satisfaction. But Lottie at fifteen or sixteen was her despair--"Exactly
like a great unruly boy," she lamented. She dashed through her lessons
fairly well, but the moment she was released she was unendurable. She
whistled, she sang at the top of her voice, and plunged about the house in
her thick boots, till she could be off to join the two boys at the rectory,
her dear friends and comrades. Robin Wingfield, the elder, was her junior
by rather more than a year; and this advantage, especially as she was tall
and strong for her age, enabled her fully to hold her own with them. Nor
could Mrs. Blake hinder this friendship, as she would gladly have done, for
her husband was on Lottie's side.

"Let the girl alone," he said. "Too big for this sort of thing? Rubbish!
The milliner's bills will come in quite soon enough. And what's amiss with