Mrs. Halfpenny, who did not like to have to separate Mysie's clothes
from the rest after they were packed, rather favoured this
naughtiness by observing: 'The old blue merino might stay at home.
Miss Mysie would be too set up to wear that among her fine folk. Set
her up, that she should have all the treats, while her own Miss
Gillian was turned over to the auld aunties!'

'Nonsense, nurse,' said Gillian. 'I'm much better pleased to go and
be of some use! Val, you naughty child, how dare you make such a
fuss?' for Valetta was crying again.

'I hate school, and I hate Rockstone, and I don't see why Mysie
should always go everywhere, and wear new frocks, and I go to the
butchers and bakers and wear horrid old ones.'

'I wish you could come too,' said Mysie; 'but indeed old frocks are
the nicest, because one is not bothered to take so much care of them;
and lords and ladies aren't a bit better to play with than, other
people. In fact, Ivy is what Japs calls a muff and a stick.'

Valetta, however, cried on, and Mysie went the length of repairing to
her mother, in the midst of her last notes and packings, to entreat
to change with Val, who followed on tip-toe.

'Certainly not,' was the answer from Lady Merrifield, who was being
worried on all sides, 'Valetta is not asked, and she is not behaving
so that I could accept for her if she were.'

And Val had to turn away in floods of tears, which redoubled on being
told by the united voices of her brothers and sisters that they were