says it, so we must go, Miss Winter."

Miss Winter glanced unutterable things at Margaret, and Ethel began
to perceive she had done something wrong. Flora was going to speak,
when Margaret, trying to appear unconscious of a certain deepening
colour in her own cheeks, pressed a hand on her shoulder, and
whispering, "I'll see about it. Don't say any more, please," glided
out of the room.

"What's in the wind?" said Harry. "Are many of your reefs out there,
Ethel?"

"Harry can talk nothing but sailors' language," said Flora, "and I am
sure he did not learn that of Mr. Ernescliffe. You never hear slang
from him."

"But aren't we going to Cocksmoor?" asked Mary, a blunt downright
girl of ten.

"We shall know soon," said Ethel. "I suppose I had better wait till
after the reading to mend that horrid frock?"

"I think so, since we are so nearly collected," said Miss Winter; and
Ethel, seating herself on the corner of the window-seat, with one leg
doubled under her, took up a Shakespeare, holding it close to her
eyes, and her brother Norman, who, in age, came between her and
Flora, kneeling on one knee on the window-seat, and supporting
himself with one arm against the shutter, leaned over her, reading it
too, disregarding a tumultuous skirmish going on in that division of
the family collectively termed "the boys," namely, Harry, Mary, and