"Avis! Who'd have thought of seeing you?"

"Are you staying here?"

"No, only over for the afternoon."

"We've rooms at Beach View over there. Come along and have some tea with
us, and your brothers too. Yes, indeed you must! Mother will be
delighted to see you all. I shan't let you say no!"

Borne away by her hospitable friend, Ingred presently found herself
sitting on a seat in the front garden of a tall boarding-house facing
the sea, and while Egbert and Hereward discussed motor-cycling with
Avis's father, the two girls enjoyed a confidential chat together.

"Only a few days now," sighed Avis, "then we've got to leave all this
and go home. How long are you staying at Lynstones, Ingred?"

"A fortnight more, but don't talk of going home. I want the holidays to
last forever!"

"So do I, but they won't. School begins on the twenty-first of
September. It will be rather sport to go to the new buildings at last,
won't it? By the by, now the war's over, and we've all got our own
again, I suppose you're going back to Rotherwood, aren't you?"

"I suppose so, when it's ready."

"But surely the Red Cross cleared out ages ago, and the whole place has
been done up? I saw the paperhangers there in June."